Rocky Mountain Institute : Library

Citizens & Community

C08-02, Comparison of Life-Cycle Analyses of Compact Fluorescent and Incandescent Lamps (PDF-1.2 MB): This paper addresses the debate over compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) and incandescents through life-cycle analyses (LCA) conducted in the SimaPro life-cycle analysis program. It compares the environmental impacts of providing a given amount of light (approximately 1,600 lumens) from incandescents and CFLs for 10,000 hours (March 2008).

C08-02s, Digging Deep: Are CFLs Really Green? (Yes, and here are some tips to maximize their benefit?) (PDF-230 KB): This gives the curious reader approachable and understandable insight into the real story with CFLs. (March 2008).

C02-12, Cool Citizens: Everyday Solutions to Climate Change: Household Solutions Brief (PDF-504k): This brief describes how we homeowners can lighten our impact on the earth's changing climate by reducing emissions of greenhouse gases from our households. Some of the measures save money fast enough to make sense for renters, too. Most of the recommendations pay for themselves in reduced energy bills in six years or less, and many in less than two years (April 2002).

C02-12a, Cool Citizens: Everyday Solutions to Climate Change Household Solutions: Residential Carbon Dioxide Emissions Profile and Calculations of Carbon Dioxide Reduction Measures (PDF-300k): The following tables — and their extensive footnotes — detail the characteristics of the "typical" U.S. single-family household that we have profiled in the "Cool Citizens: Household Solutions Brief." This background report also describes our calculations, assumptions, and methods of estimating energy- and greenhouse-saving measures (April 2002).

C02-12b, U.S. Emissions of Greenhouse Gases per Household and per Capita, 1998 (PDF-28k): This Excel worksheet includes detailed information on household vehicles and equipment (ATVs, snowmobiles, and lawn mowers), mass transit, and commercial transportation, waterborne commerce, and off-road fuel consumption. It summarizes all greenhouse gases, including the CFC emissions excluded from official inventories. Each of the sixty-one line-items includes a note with sources, data, assumptions, and calculations (April 2002).

C02-12c, Chart of the Climate Neutral Household, 2002–2012 (PDF-36k): This chart summarizes the least-cost implementation and sequencing of the thirty-six energy- and carbon dioxide-saving measures discussed in the "Cool Citizens: Household Solutions Brief" and, in more detail, in the Profile and Calculations paper (April 2002).

C07-09, Nuclear Power and Climate Change (PDF-650k): This 2007 Web exchange between Prof. Steve Berry (University of Chicago), Peter Bradford (former U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner and senior utility regulator), and Amory Lovins (Chairman and Chief Scientist of RMI) elucidates the case for and against nuclear power to help protect the earth's climate. Originally posted at http://thebulletin.org/roundtable/nuclear-power-climate- change, with entries in reverse chronological order (27 August 2007).

C07-08, Profitable Solutions For Oil, Climate, and Proliferation (PDF-196k): Expanded and updated version of "What Can We Do To Fix The Climate Problem?" (RMI publication #C06-10) plus endnotes and biosketch. This article was an invited draft for the American Academy in Berlin (27 August 2007) and was published in the Fall 2007 issue.

C07-07, What Can We Do? (PDF-124k): RMI's Amory Lovins joins three prominent colleagues — Drs. José Goldemberg, Stephen Schneider, and M.S. Swaminathan — in a pithy summary of global climate solutions. Published in the January/February 2007 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (January 2007).

C06-10, What Can We Do To Fix The Climate Problem? (PDF-40k): Climate solutions are not costly but profitable, because saving fuel costs less than buying fuel. Many leading companies are making billions of dollars' profit by cutting their carbon intensity or emissions at rates of 5–8%/y. When politicians who lament climate protection's supposed costs, burdens, and sacrifices join the parallel universe of practitioners who routinely achieve profits, jobs, and competitive advantage by wasting less fuel, the political obstacles will dissolve. This article was an invited draft for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which printed a condensed version (31 October 2006).

C05-05, More Profit With Less Carbon (PDF-515k)
C05-05a, More to Explore: Extended bibliography (PDF-24k): The economic theorists and political friends or foes of climate protection, who all argue about whether its cost is big or small, are getting the number's sign wrong. Amory Lovins's September 2005 Scientific American article shows why climate protection is not costly but profitable: energy efficiency saves fossil fuel more cheaply than buying it. Practical experience and corporate success with energy efficiency are now so compelling that even governments may soon realize the climate debate should be not about sacrifice but about wealth creation and competitive advantage. Copyright (c) 2005 by Scientific American; reproduced by kind permission from Scientific American (www.sciam.com); Volume 293 (III): pages 74–82 (September 2005).

C97-13, Climate: Making Sense and Making Money (PDF-462k): Climate change is not the inevitable price of progress, but rather "an unnecessary artifact of the uneconomically wasteful use of resources," according to this influential white paper by Amory Lovins and Hunter Lovins. Many other studies have shown how the United States can reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions while stimulating the economy. This paper offers practical, market-based mechanisms for actually making that happen-without relying on the carbon tax or other "command-and-control" strategies that some economists and politicians fear would harm the economy (1997).

C97-15, Climate: Making Sense and Making Money—Overhead Presentation (PDF-280k): Detailed overhead-slide lecture notes from Amory Lovins' presentation to an NGO symposium at the 1997 Kyoto Climate Conference presents RMI's thesis that climate protection, properly implemented, is practical and profitable for all countries and in all stages of development (1997).