This week Obama named one of his best cabinet picks yet: Dr. Steven Chu, director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, former chair of Stanford University's physics department, and Nobel Prize-winning (for research in laser cooling and trapping of atoms) physicist, was named Obama's Energy Secretary. Chu also has been an early and strong supporter of alternative fuels and renewable energy research. THIS is the kind of leadership this country needs!

It should be noted that this is the FIRST Energy Secretary who is genuinely an expert on energy.

Dr. Chu's impressive biography can be found here.

Here's a video of Steve Chu at the Davos Annual Meeting, 2007, talking about Climate Change:

Apparently (and not surprisingly) some of those sales pitches you get about switching your energy provider are actually scams. I want to pass along a warning on the scams and pass along my own view of a legit energy choice.

From Concerned Citizens of Greenwood Heights (a group I was not previously aware of, and thanks to Park Slope Neighbors for pointing them out) comes this info on a scam hitting New Yorkers (PDF):

Here's an interesting rundown of the polluters in Brooklyn from the Josh Skaller for City Council website. The worst polluters in Brooklyn are (not in order): Con Edison - Hudson Ave Station, Gowanus Generating Station, Kings Plaza Total Energy Plant, American Sugar Refining Inc, Brooklyn Navy Yard Cogeneration Plant. These people are poisoning our air and water. Just a reminder of how bad pollution in Brooklyn can be, let me remind you of what the Gowanus Canal looks like: (two out of five lovely pictures of the canal taken by my wife July 26th, 2008)

See the lovely phase change between the solid slick and the water? Here's what it looked like on the opposite bank:

Yes...that is a glass bottle embedded and suspended by the muck.

Biodiesel is one of the most intriguing of those new possibilities...crops of soybeans and rapeseed and maybe even algae, grown by present day farmers, processed into a diesel fuel substitute that works just fine in modern Volkswagons and Mack trucks and school buses--even in the oil-burning furnace down in the basement. It is potentially a truely sweet solution, offering a new market for hard-pressed local farmers even as it begins to help solve some of our most pressing environmental problems. Greg Pahl's book...manages to raise the right questions (and raise them early enough) so that we can perhaps build a structure for this developing industry that serves local farmers and processors instead of simply corporate agribusiness giants.

--Bill McKibben in the Forward to Greg Pahl's Biodiesel

Biodiesel has been getting a bad name because of the potential for competition with food production. It has always struck me that some of the loudest voices criticizing biodiesel has come from the oil, coal and nuke lobbies. But it did seem like competition with food production may be a critical problem with biodiesel.

Not too long ago I highlighted some ideas I had regarding the role of biofuels in a sane American energy plan that could wean us off oil. Biofuels are controversial and are a minefield of problems. But, there are definitely very sane, smart and viable biofuel options that need to be considered as part of America's energy policy. The diary I mention above discusses several options I think need consideration.

"The last 50 years stick out like a sore thumb... The temperature's gone up and up and up. It bears the imprint of human activity."

--Dr. Michael Oppenheimer, Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs, Princeton University

"It's not something we can adapt to...we can't let it go another 10 years like this."

--Dr. James Hansen, Director NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, member National Academy of Sciences

"The weight of evidence for climate change is very strong indeed, and it has gotten stronger over the years...The rate of warming is now greater than it has been for 10,000 years; that means the rate of climate change is greater than it has been for 10,000 years."

--Sir John Houghton, Professor in atmospheric physics, University of Oxford, recipient of Royal Astronomical Society Gold Medal, Honorary Member American Meteorological Society

New Democratic Majority, Brooklyn Presents:

GREEN NYC SEMINAR SERIES:
WIND POWER FOR NYC

Thursday June 14th
7 PM
Ozzie's Coffee Shop
5th Ave. and Garfield Place
Park Slope, Brooklyn

New Democratic Majority is a Progressive grassroots organization working to return the Democratic Party to its populist roots and restore common sense to American politics.

Jeff Cheek of NY Wind will be our guest for our June meeting. NY Wind is a community-driven organization dedicated to providing information about wind power options and green energy for residents, businesses, churches, not for profit organizations, and other proactive energy consumers in the New York region.

Hope to see you there! This event may be podcast on Daily Gotham if we get our act together.