When the annual World Economic Forum draws the wealthy and powerful to Davos, Switzerland, things happen. The 2019 initiation of a 1 trillion tree planting scheme (https://www.1t.org/) – 1t for short – is an example. Does it mean that the…
Author Archive for William Rau
Heat Waves — In Red and Black | Is Large-Scale Ecological Restoration Possible? The Loess Plateau Experiment, Part 2
by William Rau • • 0 Comments
Heat Waves — In Red and Black | Is Large-Scale Ecological Restoration Possible? The Loess Plateau Experiment, Part 1
by William Rau • • 0 Comments
Heat Waves — In Red and Black | Designed to Fail: Texas’ Radically Deregulated Power Grid
by William Rau • • 0 Comments
The massive, multi-day electricity blackout in Texas this February vividly highlights the importance of reliable electricity during extreme heat or cold. The economic cost to Texas from days without power will be close to $200 billion, or $75 billion more…
Heat Waves — In Red and Black | Paul Hawken’s Drawdown Fellows and the 80 Ways to Cut Your Carbon
by William Rau • • 0 Comments
My last three columns highlighted a federal, dividend-based carbon tax. This policy would often amplify complementary local, state and international policies. State governments, for example, can capitalize on a dividend-based carbon tax by expanding renewable energy production, electrifying transportation, increasing…
Heat Waves — In Red and Black | Reasons for a Dividend-Based Carbon Tax, Part 3: Heat that Kills
by William Rau • • 2 Comments
Kim Stanley Robinson opens his climate fiction opus, “The Ministry for the Future,” in the year 2025 with a brutal heat wave spreading across India. Heat and humidity approach the survival limit for humans. Then, the grid goes down across…
Heat Waves — In Red and Black | Reasons for a Dividend-Based Carbon Tax – Part 2: Sea Level Rise
by William Rau • • 0 Comments
Heat Waves — In Red and Black | Universities’ Roles in the Climate Crisis
by William Rau • • 0 Comments
Illinois universities help fuel the climate crisis. First, no Prairie State university has dumped fossil fuel investments. These money-losing, risky holdings serve primarily to legitimize a planet-destroying industry. Second, as large fossil fuel burners, universities are major carbon emitters. Illinois…
Heat Waves — In Red and Black | Will Illinois State University’s Reggie Redbird Get a Green Vest?
by William Rau • • 0 Comments
As climate wildfires rage and the world burns, we ask: who is rising to the challenges of the multiplying climate catastrophes? Illinois State University (ISU) has not. Instead, ISU has retreated from past climate commitments. The retreat begins in earnest…
Heat Waves — In Red and Black | How not to treat heat stroke during an intense heat wave
by William Rau • • 0 Comments
I know three people who collapsed from heat stroke. Doctors told frantic parents of two kids to immerse them in a cold-water bath. The third, a high school runner who collapsed during a race, attended a school where the athletics…