Climate Change - Information, News and Updates

Communicating Climate Change in Everyday Conversation with a Skeptic

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Carlo Pascua) — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 07:52:00 +0000

Communicating climate change is necessary, communicating climate change to skeptics is most important.

Climate change is a tough topic to bring about in the United States, increasingly so for the rest of the world due to a powerful skepticism movement. However, if we are to have educated responses and responsible voters there will need to an understanding of climate change for everyone that is affected. The current status quo of ignoring the issue will not do. It was Lord Stern, whose pivotal study the Stern Review is the most widely referred to report on the Economics of Climate Change that said "It is intensive public discussion that will, in my view, be the ultimate enforcement mechanism." Unfortunately, we are not there and it is due to everyday conversations and communication.

Problems in communicating climate change: for greater depth, our blogger Brian Kahn has put together a series regarding the challenges of communicating climate change. Global warming has already reached a consensus among most scientists (90% of the scientific journal Earth scientists believe the earth is warming. 82% believe that human activity causes the increase in climate temperature.) Brian goes into length three things: language, media, and visualizing. These three elements of communication are poorly utilized and the cause of such climate change illiteracy in the US.

Politics: climate change has become more than just a scientific phenomena briefly mentioned in textbooks or television ads. It has become a political issue, with a line drawn between conservatives and liberals; or more accurately between economists and environmentalists. Once political lines are drawn, the conversation turns away from facts and solutions to “who’s right and therefore better.” In that situation everyone loses.

It must be understood quickly that unless we can pull the issue of climate change away from being categorized as a political ideology or religious view we’re never going to have a fruitful conversation on climate change. Without fruitful climate change conversations we won’t have the “ultimate enforcement mechanism” Stern mentions above. In order to win, you must lose. That is to say, you must treat the conversation like a friendly transaction between two scholars looking for the truth, not trying to convince the other is wrong.

How an everyday conversation should go between a climate change skeptic and an advocate against climate change: first, the topic is brought up. “So what are your views on climate change?” Their answer may be: “It’s a natural cycle that happens every 10,000 years, not man-made.” Bingo, we have a skeptic. You could cite all the climate change reports you’ve read and they would put forth theirs. Or you’d be better to discuss probabilities. Climate change has this fat-tail problem: small probabilities for highly catastrophic consequences: one computer model has shown if we become carbon neutral at 550ppm (with a strong global effort) there's a 4.2% probability of reaching an 8C rise in temperature (Stern, 2008). Ask them: what if we’re wrong to ignore climate change? Would you have wanted governments to put up 1% of GDP to save lives? If nothing else, than just to save money? Turn the conversation away from who’s right or wrong and make it about what if we could have done something, just in case it’s as bad as or worse than what many scientists suggest. You’ll rediscover common ground with skeptics needed to do good for the future; we’ll build from there.

Photo Credit : Anders V

How Serious is China About Climate Change?

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Kahn) — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 07:08:00 +0000

Many world leaders felt Chinese negotiators, including the Premier, were acting as obstructionists at the Copenhagen Conference of the Parties (COP) in December. Now, in an address to the media, Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao, says he actually felt snubbed at Copenhagen.

One of the biggest points of contention was that Wen skipped a meeting of the world's top leaders in the waning days of the conference. In his addres, Wen said he was not aware of the meeting and that criticism of China hijacking the proceedings at Copenhagen are absurd. He also said China is committed to the Copenhagen Accord, which it helped craft along with leaders from South Africa, Brazil, India, and the US.

The fact that China recently signed on to the Accord indicates that China is still serious about international climate negotiations. Wen's statements further this position. While developed countries such as the US and England want China to take on similar emissions responsibilities to the rest of the developed world, it might not make the most sense. A recent report indicates that developed countries are outsourcing a large portion of their emissions to developing countries, particularly China.

China has benefited from those emissions through strong economic growth and a better quality of life for it citizens. While China has argument that developed countries should take on a greater burden in mitigating the effects of climate change holds some water, the economic benefits China has realized from accepting the role of the number one place to outsource emissions should not come without consequences.

If Wen's statement is to be taken at face value, then China should take on a greater role at COP16 in Cancun. Reducing carbon intensity, which the Chinese government has proposed, is not enough. China needs to be serious about finding way to reduce actual emissions. Remembering that all parties have the same goal should help the Chinese government find common ground with developed and other emerging economies like India, Brazil, and South Africa in setting up common but differentiated responsibilities.

The Cheap Political Gains of Questioning Climate Change

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Kahn) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 11:27:00 +0000

There are a number of disconnects in the US right now about climate change. One of the more interesting ones is the disconnect between the majority of our current elected officials and candidates running for seats in the House and Senate as well as possible presidential candidates.

Aside from some outliers (I’m looking at you, James Inhofe), most elected officials at the national level believe climate change is happening. Some are even looking to craft solutions before its too late. Senator Lindsey Graham (D), is still working with with Senators John Kerry (D) and Joe Liebermann (I) to craft a bipartisan climate change bill in the Senate to compliment the one already passed in the House. Its one of the rare moments where Senators are working across the aisle on a big issue.

It could become even more rare if some Republican hopefuls win office this fall. There are prominent Republicans such as Marco Rubio, who is running for Senate in Florida, and Tim Pawlenty, who is eying a presidential big in 2012, who have suddenly backed off of supporting climate change legislation. This is a change of pace from their stances even a few years ago.

Pawlenty supported capping greenhouse gas emissions in Minnesota earlier in his role as governor. Rubio, as leader of the Florida House of Representatives, helped get a unanimous vote urging the State Department of Environmental Protection to create rules for how companies operating in Florida could limit emissions. Both of them have suddenly had a change of heart about the science of climate change.

It would seem that their reasons for changing are purely political. The Tea Party movement coupled with oil and gas special interests have jerked the Republican Party to the far right on many issues including climate change. It’s dangerous ground to be standing on, though.

While short term gains by questioning the science of climate change could help Republicans pick up seats in the House and Senate, but they could diminish long term election chances. Lindsey Graham has warned that playing to party activists could alienate young voters, particularly in the future. He’s absolutely right.

The science may not be exact, but the trends are clear enough to know things are changing. Just because we aren't certain of exact temperatures or precipitation amounts in a given year doesn’t mean we should hold off on meaningful action to reduce emissions. Temporary political gains got by questioning the science will ultimately hurt Republican credibility as climate changes and more world leaders look to act to avert the worst effects of climate change. If people like Pawlenty and Rubio win election this fall or in 2012, they should enjoy the view from the top because they won’t be there for long.

Current Climate Change Series on Justmeans

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Carlo Pascua) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 08:41:00 +0000

Summary of current and new series at Justmeans.com: LEED Buildings, policy, renewable energy, organizations doing good work for climate change.

If it hasn't already become apparent, this climate change blog has a mother climate change blog at Justmeans.com. At Justmeans the number of excellent writers has doubled and in particular Brian Kahn has joined the family. He is in the middle of an excellent series on communicating climate change, be sure to check that out. Brian will be writing for climate change regularly, so be sure to follow him on as well. Other climate change series on Justmeans are also being published and a couple of new ones as well, they are:

The LEED Building and Energy Efficiency Series. This series will focus on the most successful green movement, LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) run by the most successful green organization ever created, the United States Green Building Council (USGBC). A rundown of credits and cost-saving measures will hopefully make it easier to understand why LEED is the future, today. It is an organization that exemplifies the triple bottom line: "People, planet, and profit." When I traveled to Denmark to learn from the nation’s world-class renewable energy programs, I learned that the most valuable thing they could still do was to increase energy efficiency of buildings. In the US, buildings consume over 72% of electricity and 30% of total energy (USGBC, 2010). Sustainable, green, and energy efficient buildings combat climate change, are profitable, and increase worker productivity and health.

The ongoing Climate Change Policy Series was originally designed to give a background of countries' climate change and energy policies leading up to the climactic (or anticlimactic) COP15 summit. It was the hope of this author, like many across the globe, that once the summit ended a global agreement on climate change would be signed. This would set us on the path of a concerted effort and a new series dedicated to new commitments would begin - maybe next time.

Another ongoing series is the Renewable Energy Solutions for Climate Change Series. Justmeans recently added an editorial category titled: Energy and Emissions, run by Paul Birkeland a former aerospace engineer and Brian Cotta a PhD in materials science, and that technically this series belongs there. However, it's difficult separating renewable energy and climate change, like separating sustainability and climate change. The problem is climate change and global warming; the solutions are renewable energy, efficiency, and sustainability.

The Organizations Doing Good Work for Climate Change Solutions Series. This can include companies, but a focus will be to dedicated climate change organizations. Submissions and press releases will only be accepted on Justmeans via messaging either me, Juan Carlo Pascua, or Brian Kahn. If you already have an account we'll scour your press releases on Justmeans as well, just be sure to follow the climate change editorial so that we may follow you as well, it's just easier to keep track of updates that way. Cheers!

The Specific Arguments For and Against Green Jobs: Climate Change or Sustainability

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Carlo Pascua) — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 08:18:00 +0000

The specific arguments for and against green jobs, which are solutions to climate change or sustainability are discussed.

Green jobs combat climate change and even if climate change predictions do not arrive, many current or planned mitigation efforts are still worthwhile investments in sustainability. Any climate change project would create green jobs. In the unlikely even that climate change does not occur, we can rename the problem a need for sustainability and we’ll all still win. However, the argument continues: do green jobs exist?

The single most important piece of evidence that green jobs exist and will continue to create new jobs is the enormous amounts of investment into the green economic landscape. Billions of dollar are being invested into new companies and "Investment creates jobs." Specifically, the PERI (2008) reports six green industry sectors that are about to boom: building retrofit, mass transit, energy efficient automobiles, wind power, solar power, and cellulosic biofuels.

A UNEP (2008) reports $10 billion in investment were committed by leading investment groups by 2010, these groups represented $8 trillion dollars in assets. A Berkeley, California case study (2007) contained three noteworthy arguments for green jobs: 1) Green collar jobs are well suited for workers with barriers to employment - they offer low barriers to entry, meaning not even a high school degree is required; 2) people are interested in these jobs; 3) owners are willing to hire job ready applicants.

The arguments against green jobs focus on criticizing the meaning of the term “green job,” methodologies of the green literature, and paranoia against global economic change. Morriss et al. (2009) provide seven myths and their respective realities on green jobs:
Reason #1: There is no such thing as a green job because there is no uniformly agreed definition.
Reason #2: green jobs will not boost productive employment because estimates include huge numbers of clerical jobs that do not create actual goods or services for consumption.
Reason #3: the green jobs forecasts are unreliable because they are made upon poor economic models and dubious assumptions.
Reason #4: green jobs do not promote employment growth because they favor labor jobs over more efficient machines and technology.
Reason #5: the world economy cannot be remade because local modes of production are inadequate to supply the desires of any country; special outside firms would be needed.
Reason #6: mandates are not a substitute for markets, because companies react more swiftly to consumers than government entanglements.
Reason #7: wishing for technological progress is insufficient, because technologies preferred by green studies are incapable of reaching a meaningful scale to meet demand.

As mentioned before, the debate on whether green jobs exist is the same debate as whether climate change is real. They do exist (green jobs) and it is real (climate change). Climate change is the problem; green jobs are the solution. Wewill go into more depth in following posts to discover that even if climate change is not real, the cost savings we’d get in investing for green jobs for sustainability make green jobs the necessary future.

Tangled Web of Carbon Emissions

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 07:56:00 +0000

The UN published an eye-catching and educational graphic that illustrates society's sources of carbon emissions as well as the use that generated those emissions and the kind of emissions they are. You can pull a boatload of surprises off this one. Here are a few that surprised me. (All values are computed based on CO2 equivalent tonnage.)

Energy Consumption accounts for only 61.4% of total emissions. This is still the vast majority, but not as much as I thought it was. Land Use change is the second largest source at 18.2%. There's cause for thought.

Methane, which is 21 times more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas, comes mostly from three sources Ð Agriculture 53.6%, Waste 25.7%, and the Oil Industry 20.7%. So a focus on those would be very effective.

Agricultural Energy Use is only 1.4% of the worldwide total emissions. So despite all the programs to reduce farm-based energy consumption, that really doesn't seem to be a problem. Much greater are the Agriculture Soils category, which I assume includes fertilizer applications, at 6%, and Livestock & Manure at 5.1%.

Transportation accounts for 13.5% of emissions, although I know that varies greatly from place to place. Here in the Pacific Northwest, with our blessing of hydropower, transportaion emissions are about half of our total.

Transportation Sectors surprising than the Transportation total is the breakdown by sectors. Road travel accounts for 73.3% of Transportation sector emissions (9.9% of the world total.) Air and Rail make up the other 27% (11.8% and 14.8% respectively. Electric rail accounts for an additional 0.3% of world total, but it is counted under power plant sources.) The point here is that a fcous on road systems, either in reducing the usage or increasing efficiency or both, will yield the greatest benefit.

Nitrous Oxide, the second most harmful greenhouse gas, is produced almost entirely by Agricultural Soils. Nitrous accounts for only 8% of the world's GHG production, but 75% of it comes from Soils, which generally means evaporation of synthetic fertilizers. So here's a significant chunk of emissions that can be stopped with a singular focus.

My take away here is one of hope. With focused efforts it's possible to reduce emissions pretty readily. There is a tougher challenge politically of course. But still, the research story is a positive one.

CO2 Bathtub

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 07:08:00 +0000

A friend of mine, a retired aerospace engineer who helped send men to the Moon, tipped me off to this article and its simple, but effective analogy.

A recent National Geographic had a short article about an MIT professor who wrote a computer program he calls the "bathtub analogy." Very briefly, a bathtub has an inlet spigot and an outlet drain. If the spigot is letting in less than the drain can pass out, the tub will never fill up. If the spigot is flowing at exactly the same rate that the drain passes out, the tub won't fill up or if there's already an initial water level in the tub, that level will remain constant. And of course, if the spigot is flowing at a rate greater then the drain can pass out, the tub will eventually fill up and overflow.

The MIT professor uses this analogy for many scientific and economic systems. For example, with suitable adaptations, conversion parameters, input data, etc., his program will address how you can gain and/or lose weight, how your outstanding credit card balance will go up and down, and so forth. He recently applied this program to the level of CO2 in the atmosphere using input data from another professor at the University of Chicago and from the Carbon Project.

Without burdening you with a lot of analytical detail, his bathtub analogy program shows that in 2008, the latest year with adequate data, the "global spigot of everything" filled the Earth's CO2 Bathtub at a rate of 9.1 billion metric tons (bmt) per year. In that year the drain on our CO2 Bathtub drained out the following:

+ 0.9 bmt were absorbed by sediments and rocks. They are a huge CO2"sink", but chemically work very slowly and would take centuries to absorb all the CO2 currently being emitted by all the natural and man-made processes on the planet.
+ 2.8 bmt were absorbed by the oceans. This is also a huge CO2 "sink", but only absorbs CO2 on its surface. The CO2-laden surface sea water then sinks at various places defined by global sea circulations, and is replaced by new sea water. This also is a slow process, and physically isn't able to play catch-up at current CO2 emission rates.
+ 2.7 bmt were absorbed by plants and soils. This is a more rapid process, but that reservoir is smaller (and will always be limited in size) and it will soon fill up, especially if global forests and agricultural land continue to be destroyed at current rates.

Obviously from simple arithmetic, the bottom line is that in 2008 our CO2 Bathtub spigot flowed at 9.1 bmt, but the drain only passed out 6.4 bmt. The difference stayed in the atmosphere.
So in order to keep the CO2 level constant in that year we would have had to reduce global CO2 emissions by (9.1 - 6.4) = 2.7 bmt, or by about 30%. Also, if we wanted to additionally decrease the CO2 level in the atmosphere, we would have had to turn the CO2 spigot down to a rate less than 2.7bmt, or more than 30%.

A very important conclusion from this arithmetic is that it's necessary to cut CO2 emissions below our current level of ~9.1bmt even to just keep the CO2 level in our bathtub constant! Just living with the current 9.1 bmt (or something a little less than that), or just stopping the annual growth in emissions that we've been experiencing, will not stop the CO2 level in the atmosphere from increasing! Just like water in the bathtub, the input spigot in our CO2 Bathtub has to be turned down to flow at a rate not more than the CO2 Bathtub drain can flow out to maintain a fixed level! This is a critical conclusion that most people don't comprehend. Accordingly, everybody must recognize that to keep the current CO2 level constant we need to talk about an annual CO2 emission reduction of 30% or more! Again, the spigot inflow has to be the same or less than the drain outflow (which is now ~6.4 bmt per year), for the level to remain constant.

Thinking about emission reductions of 10% or 20%isn't going to cut the mustard! And thinking about sequestering and other schemes to effectively increase the size of the drain in our CO2Bathtub is likely impractical - we're talking here of an excess of~3 billion metric tons per year! Therefore, as the MIT professor clearly implies, a 30% reduction goal should be the "magic number" for all scientific, economic, and political discussions.

Why Carbon Reparations Don't Make Sense

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 06:09:00 +0000

Copenhagen was a disappointment, and there are many places to point fingers. But there are two in particular I want to highlight. First of all, the global chess game being played by the 'Big Five,'and especially the US and China, saw everyone castling to protect themselves, and unable to see the shadow of climate change threatening the board itself. Since the US and China are not amongst those most affected by the changes, it's easy to not see the connections to the global situation. But as conditions manifest themselves further, and the impacts propagate through social and economic systems, the time will come. It's just a shame that our leaders decide it is not now.

Equally to blame, however, are the developing nations that demanded 'carbon reparations.'
The logic goes something like this: You developed your society to an advanced state by emitting carbon that is now impacting all of us. And you are now asking our society forego the automobile, power plants, and factories to cut emissions, and essentially prevent us from reaching an equally advanced state. Consequently, developed nations should be made to pay the developing nations to facilitate progress that has so far eluded them, and that is now being put in jeopardy.

One can't deny the sense of justice about this. But the flaw here is that this is a backward looking rationale. Such a program clearly won't put the resources where they would most effectively reverse climate change. And that is, after all, what we are trying to do. But in fact, they won't mitigate lagging development in the poorer nations either.

In a recent publication called "What Works In Development?" a group of economists try to sort out what works and what doesn't in fostering development in poor nations. The conclusions aren't encouraging. There is no consistent correlation between policy changes and increased growth, no correlation between economic performance from one decade to the next, and, most surprisingly, no correlation between improving government institutions and economic progress. One author, Abhijit Banerjee concluded that, "Perhaps making growth happen is ultimately beyond our control."

It was not the use of fossil fuels alone that allowed some nations to advance while others remained mired in the 19th century or worse. Nations that failed to make progress tended to be subject to cultural cross-currents within themselves that are resistant to progress in some way. It may be a widespread sense of futility (Haiti for example), extensive social mistrust (Afghanistan), or a dominant religious perspective emphasizing helplessness before divine forces (Egypt comes to mind.). One way or another these things cause people to refuse to internalize responsbility or initiative. So nothing changes and development is forever stalled. Development, it turns out, is more than just the sum of fossil fuel use, industrial agriculture, and wireless broadband.

So we need to push the Big Five to put the chessboard aside. But we also need to attack climate change with an eye for effectiveness, and not to satisfy a misplaced sense of justice.

The Price of Energy - Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 05:52:00 +0000

This is the second of a two-part blog on the Price of Energy. (See Part 1 here.) Let me reiterate that the Price of Energy is nowhere near the Cost of Energy. This is perhaps the biggest market failure of all time. We are just realizing the social, health, and environmental costs of energy. But they have yet to be factored into the price.

In any event, here's the rest of the short primer on the Price of Energy.

PROPANE - Propane is methane's poor stepsister. It comes up with oil and natural gas. But propane condenses into liquid at or near ambient conditions, so the natural gas people don't want it in their pipelines (that are designed to move a gas). On the other hand, propane's energy density is relatively low, and it doesn't come up in the amounts that oil does. So it's not worth transoceanic transport. Propane is transported in railroad cars and trucks. So propane is another "continental" market. But the price of propane is tied, not just to its energy content, but to the price of the gasoline needed to transport it. Indeed, the price of propane tracks the price of oil, and peaked last year at about the same time the price of gasoline did in the US.

COAL - Here's everyone's least favorite energy source, the dirtiest to extract and use. Unfortunately it's also the most abundant. The harder, more desirable coal comes from deep mines. Softer, less energy-dense coal comes from strip mines or mountaintop removal. Either way, they burn a lot of diesel getting it out. It's mostly used for power plants and in the steel industry. But those are pretty big users! Coal is mostly transported by rail and truck. (More diesel.) There is some international transport by ship. So the price of coal is driven by the demand for electricity, but it is heavily influenced by the price of oil.

ELECTRICITY - Electricity is a derivative form of energy. You just don't pump it out of the ground. The price of electricity is affected by the price of the source energy and the demand. The source energy comes from many things - natural gas or coal fired generators, dams, nuclear plants, wind turbines, solar panels. All sorts of stuff. In general, though, there are few oil-fired power plants, and source energy is limited to at most "continental" markets. Electrical networks, however, tend to be regional. So the demand is subject to regional influences. The end result is very complex. For example, the Seattle City Light rate increase I mentioned earlier.

Seattle City light gets the majority of its power from hydropower dams. When there is extra, which is pretty often, they sell it into the regional grid that extends down to California. In California, there are a lot of natural gas fired power plants. So when the price of natural gas is high, or when demand is such that they can't meet it with existing power plants, California utilities seek to buy our hydro power on the open market. And we sell it to them. In fact, those sales subsidize our own usage, and we pay lower electrical rates than most anywhere else in the US thanks to the California consumer.

But when the price of natural gas goes down, as it has now, or demand drops, as it has now, the California utilities prefer to generate their own power and not buy any on the open market. That leaves utilities here in the Northwest with a budget gap. There's suddenly a big hole in the revenue stream that needs to be plugged by a rate increase.

So that's a top-level explanation of the energy markets, and it's clear that "energy is not just energy." If you are planning for a company or an economy, the form of the energy you use is indicative of the risk you are assuming. It is well-worth drafting an Energy Risk Management Plan to spark discussion and plot a risk management path ahead.

Climate Change is Just a Part of the Real Goal, Which is?

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Carlo Pascua) — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 07:27:00 +0000

Solving climate change will be solve if we focus on this particular goal…

The goal is to be 100% free of oil and coal. The goal is to be 100% free of oil and coal; this point isn't drilled enough. Take any handful of supporters of climate change solutions and you'll get mixed results: the goal is to save the polar bears, the goal is to save the arctic ice, the goal is to prevent a nuclear attack... While these are all very worthy goals they share one common umbrella goal, which is the father of all these goals: the goal is to be 100% free of oil and coal. As China and India have shown this goal is not economically feasible, not at the moment. We need to make it economically feasible. Whether we set up a carbon cap and trade scheme or not, the goal must be met. Why we need to be fossil fuel free:

The first reason to be fossil fuel free is climate change. Take your pick: Polar ice melting, loss in biodiversity, extinction of polar bears, decreasing national security, decreasing public health, shrinking economy, job losses, strain due to large climate change caused migrations, the loss of the rainforests, increased drought and food shortages, drinkable water shortages- the list goes on and on. All caused by burning fossil fuels thereby increasing carbon emissions.

The second reason to be fossil fuel free is that we're going to be out of fossil energy in the not too distant future. Imagine an abrupt halt on everything going on in the world. An abrupt halt in lighting, heating, transportation, the internet, hospitals, patient care, cancer research, refrigeration of foods, etc - it all comes to a screeching halt. There is no doubt our world is run off of energy and as of right now coal, oil, and gasoline are all to disappear in a manner of centuries. We could procrastinate and begin solutions in the distant future. Sure, let's put up the solar panels then, but using what energy source? We need energy (fossil fuel) to make energy (renewables: solar, wind, hydropower, tidal and non-renewable nuclear).

We are at the start of the problem. We see it coming. We must act. The first step will be to increase energy efficiency. The second step will be to replace oil and gas. This stands to be the biggest challenge to overcome, as the natural path for business is the path of least resistance. That is to say, the most efficient path for a business to follow has to be the most cost effective and now and the indefinite future that path is fossil fuel. Step three will be to replace the non-renewable energy sources with renewable energy; and in order to do that we'll require a new infrastructure (smart grids, electric car charge stations, public transport) and energy storage technology (hydrogen fuel cells). There's a lot to do, but we’ll need to keep in mind the goal. What's the goal again? The goal is to be 100% free of oil and coal.

Fight Off Climate Change Skeptics With: Which Energy is not Formed from the Sun?

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Carlo Pascua) — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 07:17:00 +0000

Fight off climate change skeptics by confusing them with the truth, ask: Which energy is not from the sun. It’s not fossil fuels.

Fun ways to stump a climate change skeptic. Skeptics like to halt climate change action by claiming "green is a religion" and use misinformation to build confusion. When coming across a climate change skeptic, the conversation will go nowhere, so you might as well have some fun trying to be educational. If you're in that situation ask them: excluding nuclear, which energy source does not come from the sun? Most forms of fuel/energy on the earth are derived from the sun. The sun itself is not a renewable energy source. It is destined to burn out and become a red giant, the kind of star that will run on helium fusion instead of hydrogen fusion; the sun at this size would engulf the Earth and global warming would take on a whole new meaning (in 5B years). For now, the sun is still the mother of all energy- except for one.

Oil, coal, and gas come from the sun; they are all forms of organic matter that decomposed. This organic material was once plants that captured the energy of the sun through photosynthesis or were organisms that ate these plants. The 'fossil' in the term 'fossil fuel' comes from the masses of microorganisms (phytoplankton and zooplankton) that died and were buried in the ocean (dinosaur fossils can also be potentially in the mix). The high pressures of the buried after-life combined with high heat transformed the organic matter, fusing it with minerals, thus creating oil and natural gas. Coal is most likely from decomposed plants.

Solar energy is the easiest to understand its sunny origins. Sunlight hits a solar panel and the chemical structure of the panel allows electrons to move producing an electrical current. Hook panels up to some batteries or an electric grid and there's instant power.

Wind is also sun energy. Wind is caused by the pressure differences on the surface of the planet. The poles are cold, the tropics are warm; what heats the tropics of course is the sun. More precisely: heat rises at the equator, where it is warmed by the sun, and it heads for the poles to reach a balance. On the surface of the earth the cooler air heads to the equator. The lateral spinning of the earth creates the Coriolis Effect which spins the wind in the east and west directions.

Tidal & Hydropower. Hydropower comes from dams and tidal from the ocean. These would be gravitational sources of power and therefore the only supply not derived from the sun. Hydropower allows water to build pressure behind a dam, when the water is released it will spin a turbine to form electricity. Tidal is a little more interesting, but the effect is the same, water pushed up by the tide will turn a turbine when the tide falls, thus producing electricity. There you go, fight the confusion of climate change skeptics with education, but best to avoid them when possible.

The Price of Energy

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 10:29:00 +0000

The price of gasoline (petrol) has been rising the last few months in the US. The price of natural gas (methane) on the other hand has been falling for the past year. Seattle City Light, which gets most of its power from hydro, recently announced a 13% rate increase on electrical rates.

People often ask me to explain these seemingly contradictory trends. After all, a kilowatt-hour is a kilowatt-hour everywhere. A BTU is a BTU. The short answer is that it's a free market, and the "invisible hand" has its reasons. But a quick look at each of these energy sources explains a lot just the same.

This is the first of a two-part blog on the Price of Energy. Let me say first, however, that the Price of Energy is nowhere near the Cost of Energy. This is perhaps the biggest market failure of all time. We are just realizing the social, health, and environmental costs of energy. But they have yet to be factored into the price.

In any event, here's a short primer on the Price of Energy.

GASOLINE - There is nothing like gasoline. Nothing so energy dense, transportable, and easy to handle. Gasoline is a miracle made manifest. Gasoline comes from oil, and oil is a global market. The oil comes from everywhere and is cracked in each market to produce gasoline. So the price of gasoline follows global economic demand. Even if your country is experiencing a recession, the price of gasoline may rise due to increased demand (or decreased availability) on the other side of the world.

In the US we have the added complication that by international consensus, oil is priced in US dollars. So when oil is in demand in another country, not only is there greater market demand driving the price of oil up, but the transaction increases the demand for dollars, and the currency exchange in the transaction drives the value of the dollar up. This makes exports from the US difficult, and slows the US economy. The higher gas price combined with the stronger dollar puts a real brake on things. It works the other way as well, of course, and the US has benefited from that. But my point here is that gasoline prices in the US are a little harder to explain than elsewhere. It's a sort of double-feedback loop.

NATURAL GAS - Natural gas, or methane, either comes up along with the oil, or comes out of dedicated gas wells. Natural gas is, well, a gas at atmospheric pressure and temperature, and as such it is hard to transport globally. Generally the gas industry uses continent-wide pipeline networks. But crossing oceans is difficult. Some firms chill it to liquefy it, and then transport it in cryogenic tankers. But this in itself is energy-intensive, and makes it difficult to compete with domestic sources that come through a pipeline. The upshot is that natural gas tends to be a domestic, or at best continental, market that does not respond to economic conditions elsewhere. It may in fact move in the opposite direction in any given market.

Part 2, Propane, electricity, and (ugh) coal, next week.

Nuclear Fusion a Solution for Climate Change: 50 Years Too Late?

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Carlo Pascua) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 08:32:00 +0000

A long time from now, a time far, far, far away... Nuclear fusion! Is it a climate change solution or a just a dream?

A popular saying is that "Nuclear Fusion is 50 years away... and that was fifty years ago." Nuclear fusion often gets confused with conventional nuclear power production, called nuclear fission. When people discuss nuclear reactors in conversation they are referring to fission, which is the process of creating energy by splitting atoms off a heavy radioactive element, usually uranium. In contrast, nuclear fusion is the process by which you take smaller atoms and combine them to make a bigger molecule and the end result is usable energy. For an easy visual: imagine slapping your hands together- this will be fusion. Now interlock your hands and quickly separate them- this is fission. In both instances something is created: sound. It's a little more complicated than that, but in principle it's a great start to understand.

Scientists long ago discovered the sun is run off of nuclear fusion; that hydrogen atoms colliding into each other to form helium and create the ball of energy at the center of our universe. Whether you're splitting or colliding atoms, energy is released like sound being generated when you clap your hands together or released them from interlocked fingers.

On earth, we don't create fusion by using hydrogen; we use deuterium and tritium, both non-radioactive, unlike uranium used in fission, which is radioactive. Radioactivity does occur: it is in the process of nuclear fusion that released neutrons will form radioactive isotopes in the walls of the reactor. Using the hand-clapping example, some of the sound created is harmful. The radioactivity has been addressed by using proper reactor wall materials. In doing so, after 100 years the waste will be no more radioactive than ash from a coal-fired power plant of the same size (RISO International Lab, 2007).

The fuels: deuterium and tritium are vastly abundant and evenly spread amongst nations on earth, which means less geopolitical clout on energy sources. Deuterium can be be extracted from water: just 1 cubic meter of water can produce 36g of deuterium, and the extraction process is cheap compared to the energy the deuterium would provide (RISO, 2007). Tritium is produced by bombarding lithium from neutrons in the fusion process. Worldwide, existing resources of lithium "would be able to power the world for a million years, and deuterium reserves would last for 50 billion years." Nuclear fusion always sounds great, just one problem: fusion is 50 years away, now where have I heard that before...

The current project is the ITER (iter is Latin for "the way") housed in France. ITER is based on the Topomak reaction design, or simply a hollow donut shaped tube where particles are accelerated to the point of collision hopeful creating fusion. Fusion is created, but the energy input is more than the energy output. It's like eating to get hungrier, and that's no way to power the future. For climate change the big date is 2050 to stabilize global warming; the best estimate for industrial nuclear fusion is 2045, too little too late. Nuclear fusion for now is a beautiful dream, but the world's been sleeping long enough. It's time to wake up.

Nuclear Power a Solution for Climate Change: Clean or Dirty?

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Carlo Pascua) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 08:24:00 +0000

At justmeans we've gone over UK: Climate Policy- it's going nuclear, but is it a solution for climate change?

Nuclear power- the word likely brings chills down the spine with images of chaos, green glow, hair falling out, melting skin, and all sorts of horrific consequences of a nuclear power plant failure. The UK has begun a process to commission 10 more nuclear facilities, to save the environment from global warming. Nuclear energy carbon-wise is clean and it certainly will last centuries longer after the last brick of coal is burned (some 200 years from now). To compare it with renewable energies: it is on par with GhG emissions, which are just produced in the initial construction phase. As clean as green, but not quite renewable, going nuclear is a likely energy strategy to support the future of the world. Of course there are some major problems to this major solution.

Concerns over nuclear power and the questions that most come up: where does the waste go? How is it treated? Why provide terrorists with an obviously devastating target? Although the last question always will remain difficult to answer- how does one account for unimaginable attacks- the answer to the first question is: currently the waste doesn't have an acceptable system of disposal. There are many proposal sites and the plan has always been to contain the spent uranium in an underground cave system. However, the proposed locations are not ready and non have begun construction. Think of having a city with thirty years of trash lying around everywhere, randomly, and that's pretty much how nuclear waste is handled. For the most part, waste is sitting around in the most imperfect ways.

Lack of nuclear engineers is also a grave problem. For the past 30 years there has been a decline in interest in nuclear power resulting in less funding. The decline is due to the fear created by the nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl (1986) and the leak at Three Mile Island, abbreviated TMI (1979). Chernobyl had highly exposed 600,000 people to radiation; TMI had a negligible effect on health. The public has since opposed nuclear power. To meet the potential need of a growing interest of nuclear for climate change and energy production that's carbon free, there needs to be 700 new graduates a year, according to ANS; currently there are only 250 graduates a year (USNews, 2008). 65 engineering programs existed in 1980 and now it is half of that. Lack of construction workers knowledgeable in their construction adds to the problem. The nuclear reactor Areva is building in Finland has seen some 3,000-construction errors resulting in immense delays.

Delays also arise from locals who oppose nuclear energy construction, so called Nimbys (Not In My BackYard). Yet, nuclear is gaining attractiveness in powering the future and powering off coal. The appeal is that nuclear plugs into current existing grids, unlike renewable energy which needs a costly infrastructure retrofit to handle the intermittence of sunlight and gusty winds. A secure and reliable energy program will need an assortment of technologies, including nuclear technology, nuclear fusion anyone?

550 ppm May Not Be Enough to Protect Against Climate Change & Global Warming

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Carlo Pascua) — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 13:02:00 +0000

Summary:
550 ppm (parts per million) carbon dioxide equivalents explained; potentially dangerous despite best efforts.

Stabilizing at 550 ppm CO2e may not be enough to protect against the worst effects of climate change & global warming. To clarify further, if there were in total 1,000,000 'balls' of atmosphere, of the 1,000,000, 550 balls would be carbon dioxide balls (standard unit of greenhouse gases is CO2e - carbon dioxide equivalents). For the Copenhagen climate summit, 550 ppm is the target by 2050; the goal is to have no additional balls of carbon added to the atmosphere. Why? Because at 550 ppm the temperature has a 76% chance of not exceeding 5 degrees C. Good odds of getting to a dangerous temperature, but still avoiding catastrophe.

Currently the world is at 430 ppm CO2e (or 430 balls of carbon dioxide for every 1,000,000 balls of atmosphere). In pre-industrial times, around the 1850s, the world had 280 ppm of CO2e in the atmosphere (280 balls per 1,000,000 atmospheric balls). Every year the planet adds 3 balls into the air, or adds 3 ppm of CO2e into the atmosphere. In four decades the planet is extremely likely to get to 550 ppm CO2e. The likely outcome would be global warming temperature increase of 5C.

But that is just an estimate; it is reasonable to go beyond 5C at 550 ppm. Computer simulations consistently point to stabilization of carbon in the atmosphere to 550 ppm because it is extremely likely to occur by 2050, under "business as usual" (often abbreviated to 'BAU' in technical papers). By stabilizing at 550 ppm we hope to stop throwing balls of carbon into the atmosphere all together. By then we'll wait and see how much hotter the planet will get. Box 8.1 taken from the Stern Review (2007) reveals humbling percentages pertaining to carbon emissions levels. Once at 550 ppm there is a 7% chance of exceeding temperatures greater than 5 degrees C; there's a 2% chance of exceeding 6 degrees C; and a 1% chance of exceeding 7 degrees C. Humans have never experienced a temperature past 5 degrees C than what it is now.

So what’s the big deal with 5 degrees C? To compare a temperature change of 5 degrees C: 10,000 years ago the climate was 5 degrees colder than it was today and ice sheets extended from the North Pole down latitudes of present day New York. Doing nothing about climate change, the path of least resistance, may see us past a 7-degree increase of temperature. The consensus in science is that each year the likelihood of shooting past 550 ppm (and therefore 5 degrees C) by 2050 is growing. As Stern has suggested, if we limit throwing carbon dioxide balls into the sky now, the cost of success will be 1% of global GDP. As we've covered in the Justmeans American Climate Change Policy Series it would cost the USA $444B to cover it’s own losses under BAU, which equates to 3.7% US GDP. It's smarter and cheaper to act now; collective strength spreads the costs thin.

President Barack Obama to Attend the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit, Despite War, Accepts Nobel Prize

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Carlo Pascua) — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 12:55:00 +0000

Summary:

Obama to announce carbon targets; attend Copenhagen summit later; accept Nobel Prize; surge in Afghanistan.

President Barack Obama is now to attend the later part of the Copenhagen climate change summit. "Based on his conversations with other leaders and the progress that has already been made to give momentum to negotiations, the president believes that continued U.S. leadership can be most productive through his participation at the end of the Copenhagen conference on December 18 rather than on December 9,” said Obama's press secretary, Robert Gibbs. His decision to shift his schedule from the beginning of the conference to the end may have come from criticism from Greenpeace, which believed that it would be better if he attended the end when agreements would finalize.

Obama's now abandoned scheduled was to visit Copenhagen on December 9 right before accepting the Nobel Peace prize in Oslo, Norway on December 10. Some criticize the president for attaining a Nobel Peace Prize despite his recent commitment to place 30,000 more troops in Afghanistan, making the total number of troops to more than 80,000. As previously mentioned, national security is an externality of climate change; poorer nations will buckle once climate effects devastate populations from many severe climatic events. A surge in Afghanistan will tie up US resources with the potential to spread troops too thin if another conflict were to arise. National security is also expensive, $657B being the price tag for the Afghanistan and Iraq wars up until 2008. The USA and the world cannot afford to allow climate change to cause a costly conflict. Developing countries are asking for $10B a year until 2012 to begin to mitigate climate effects. Mitigation now and swiftly remains the best solution.

In finding the best solution, Obama is expected to officially announce in Copenhagen his administration's plan to cut carbon emissions of the United States by 17% of 2005 levels. He also has plans to cut emissions to 83% by 2050, which fits well with the prescribed 80% cuts in carbon emissions of rich countries that Lord Stern prescribed in the Stern Review.

The last time Obama addressed world leaders about climate change was September 22. In his speech to the United Nations Obama professes: "As we head towards Copenhagen, there should be no illusions that the hardest part of our journey is in front of us." Obama warns:" Unease is no excuse for inaction. And we must not allow the perfect to become the enemy of progress." In closing: "The journey is long. The journey is hard. And we don't have much time left to make it. It is a journey that will require each of us to persevere through setback, and fight for every inch of progress, even when it comes in fits and starts. So let us begin. For if we are flexible and pragmatic; if we can resolve to work tirelessly in common effort, then we will achieve our common purpose: a world that is safer, cleaner, and healthier than the one we found; and a future that is worthy of our children. Thank you."

Thanksgiving: Before and After Impacts on the Environment and Climate Change

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Carlo Pascua) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:19:00 +0000

Before, we’ll travel. After, we’ll dump our food. Thanksgiving - the biggest day of waste.

The Holidays are upon us in the United States and consumption of energy, food and oil will peak leading up to the days of Thanksgiving. Beforehand, enormous amounts of fuel will be consumed as people travel by car, train, and airplane to see loved ones. Afterwards, Americans will spend the same amount of fuel to get back and their food wastes will lay mountains in landfills. Thanksgiving is an expensive holiday, on pocketbooks and the environment. Before and after: Thanksgiving's examined effect on climate change.

Transportation's heavy toll on the planet peaks during the Thanksgiving weekend. 32 million Americans will travel +50 miles to get to their destinations, 2.3 million will fly, and others will bus or take the train (AAA, 2009). Unfortunately the best mode of transportation is the least used, as examined through the work of Mikhail Chester and Arpad Hovath (UC Berkeley), as reported by Jacob Leibenluft of the Lantern (Nov. 2008). Their findings reveal train transportation as the best vehicle to ride: "Riding in the average train is a significantly greener choice than the average car or plane" and trains (averaging 155 passengers) produce less than half the amount of GhG's per mile compared with a sedan with the average 1.58 passengers (Slate, 2008). Trains are only better for the environment if they are stocked with passengers, an unlikely situation most days of the year. The researchers find that airplanes emit more carbon than trains or buses per passenger mile. When calculating the life-cycle of transportation methods, the amounts of concrete emissions play a significant role, too. As Leibenluft puts it: "It's not just the road you take, but what it's made out of," that counts.

The biggest American feast day is also the biggest American waste day. Jonathan Bloom, from Culinate blog, recently wrote about the problems of food waste: "More than 40 percent of all food produced in America is not eaten, according to research by former University of Arizona anthropologist Timothy Jones. That amounts to more than 29 million tons of food waste each year, or enough to fill the Rose Bowl every three days." The US wastes 25% of food prepared, the EPA reports (2009). Waste is revealed in the monumental levels of energy used to plant, fertilize, harvest, package, transport, and eventually dump food into landfills. These energy expenditures represent emissions, which are then compounded with the methane produced when these foodstuffs rot.

Food and transportation's biggest day is approaching. Trains are the greenest vehicles of travel, however the infrastructure of many states is inadequate. The interstate's miles of traffic will be the choice for many. Food waste is equally inevitable. Thanksgiving doesn't have to be so threatening to climate change. Planning is needed to ensure that cities provide the needed institutions to protect our planet and a cherished tradition.

Venus and the Run-Away Greenhouse Effect

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Carlo Pascua) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:13:00 +0000

The runaway greenhouse effect: So hot all the ocean's waters evaporate. So hot the carbon in rocks evaporate.

The surface of the planet so hot it could melt lead; a surface so hot that it would evaporate rock. Venus represents a greenhouse effect gone wrong, as life is unsustainable with its climate so harsh. Mars, Venus, and Earth each provide the examples of the importance of the greenhouse effect. Mars lacks a sizable greenhouse effect. Earth has the perfect greenhouse effect for life, however long that will remain true is in hot debate. And Venus in one word: hot.

Venus, at 467 degrees C is called Earth's sister planet because Venus is 95% the size of the Earth, has a rocky crust, and similar iron-nickel core. In the early years, 4.6M years ago, they both had water. They were practically twins, except for a few key traits. For starters, Venus doesn’t have a strong magnetic field like the Earth’s, an important distinction that will be examined shortly. Next, Venus is much closer to the sun so naturally it warrants higher temperatures. These days the two planets couldn't be further apart; Venus is a hot ball of carbon dioxide and sulfur clouds void of water and life. It owes its fate to a runaway greenhouse effect.

The Runaway Greenhouse Effect: initially there was water vapor. Solar radiation contains pure light and radiant heat, so it can easily pass through water vapor and other greenhouse gases of the atmosphere. Once this solar radiation (light) hits the planet, some of the light is reflected back out into space and a portion is transformed into Infrared Radiation that also tries to reflect back into space. When infrared radiation hits a greenhouse gas it is absorbed and turned into heat.

As mentioned earlier, Venus had water in the form of vapor (there was never liquid water). The sun's UV rays hit the water vapor providing enough energy to separate the hydrogen atoms from the oxygen atom. Since hydrogen makes the lightest gas it can escape the atmosphere, and in Venus's case, solar winds swept this component of water for good. In contrast, the Earth has a protective Ozone layer to keep the UV out just above the cold trap (layer of the atmosphere that freezes water if it travels too high, therefore sending it back to earth). Continual heat trapping allowed Venus to be so hot it could melt carbon rocks and eventually evaporate carbon into the atmosphere. The effect was so strong that today CO2 is 95% of Venus' atmosphere.

The greenhouse effect is essential to life. Mars is too cold and Venus too hot; the Earth is just right, for now. It would now take only 5 months to get to Venus via spaceship, or about a third of the duration of when Magellan's Spanish Galleons circumnavigated the globe. Even though Venus is 400M miles away, we're closer to it than ever before. Hopefully we'll stay as far away from its climate and runaway greenhouse effect.

Religion, a Solution for Climate Change?

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Carlo Pascua) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:21:00 +0000

Religious leaders and Al Gore tackle climate change using plenty of faith, brings hope

Save your planet from climate change now, or be eternally damned forever. Green is not a religion, no, but do I have your attention, now? Religious leaders of various faiths are stepping in to address the moral issues of climate change, which will affect all, and the poor most severely. CEO of Tesco, Leahy, believes in practical people-driven solutions: "It will be a transition achieved not by some great invention or some great act of parliament, but through the billions of choices made by consumers every day all over the world." The solution becomes a moral decision once we consider the consequences of poor choices. Climate change to cause eternal damnation of your soul is questionable, but immediate and irreversible planetary damnation is not.

Many already believe the Copenhagen summit is marked to fail; the religious will have to pick up the slack. So far they have made great strides. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, is one who said religions have the "moral vision" and will have "deeper roots" than any result to come out of the Copenhagen summit (Guardian, 2009). His statement came before the Alliance of Religions and Conservation (ARC), which met in Windsor Castle earlier this November. Representatives of all the major faiths congregated to declare their campaigns against climate change, from religious texts from sustainable wood to solar panel retrofits. The result of the conference was igniting.

Religious leaders pledging to fight climate change may have stirred up a light spirit of competition, which is good for the soul and the environment. Their promised measures are tremendous and far-reaching. "Faith communities own between 7-8 per cent of the habitable land surface of the planet, run (or are involved in) half the world's schools and control more than 7 per cent of international financial investments" (Ecologist, 2009). Collectively, religions hold a strong hand to engage resources to combat climate change, adding a touch of spirituality that cost-benefit analysis approaches lack.

Al Gore, former US vice-president, is one man also employing a spiritual approach. His sequel (to An Inconvenient Truth, his Oscar-winning climate documentary) Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis strives to tap into individuals' spirituality to drive action. Gore has developed religious training programs using the findings his books to engage faiths with climate change, including: Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, and Christian faiths (Newsweek, 2009).

Yes, religion may hold the answer. There are two types of people searching for climate change solutions: the people that think that technology will pull through and an energy miracle is waiting (therefore they did not have to do anything personally); and those that believe the collective work of each individual's personal choices to conserve the environment will have the greatest impact. If the savings in costs from protecting against biodiversity loss, economic spillovers, national security, migration, and disease control, are unable to convince people to support climate change and green movements, then there's hope a little faith will.

Reactions to Court Ruling: Green is a Religion

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Carlo Pascua) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:18:00 +0000

Green is a Religion: A court ruling sparking hot debate against climate change

Nov. 3, 2009: Justice Michael Burton ruled that those acting on beliefs that climate change is a problem and needs to be morally acted upon are members of a belief system equivalent to other traditional religions. Because being Green was deemed a religion it affords its membership protection against discrimination in the workplace.

The case began when plaintiff Tim Nicholson, was "made redundant" (fired, in layman's terms) by Grainger plc, Britain's leading residential property company. Nicholson believes he was fired because of his beliefs in climate change, which motivates him to passionately reduce his carbon emissions. In their defense Grainger asserts: "That Mr. Nicholson's redundancy was driven solely by the operational needs of the company." Nicholson points out his quarrel with senior staff in regards to green practices and especially brings up one instance where he objected to Grainger boss, Rupert Dickinsons, having his assistant personally deliver his BlackBerry via airplane. Nicholson: "The employment appeal tribunal ruled in my favor that a belief in man-made climate change and the moral imperative to do something about it can be classed as a philosophical belief under British employment regulations. This means that individuals who genuinely hold such a belief can benefit from legal protection against discrimination." Although labeled a victory for anti-discrimination, others believe the ruling to be a step backwards for climate change.

The cons outnumber and outweigh the pros of this outcome, as most of the Guardian blogs report. Public reactions to this case are astonishing. Many condemn the association of climate science with religion as disgusting setback. One such person is Myles Allen, one of the authors of the paramount IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (climate change). Mr. Allen's response to the Green Religion case was scornful for non-scientists labeling his profession as a religion: "The scientific case for human influence on climate is not a political opinion, made stronger simply by lots of people signing up. Nor is it a religious conviction, made stronger, in Mr. Justice Burton's phrase, if it is "genuinely held". It is based on evidence and understanding that has withstood some of the most intense scrutiny in the history of science." Karen McVeigh has another popular concern: "The judgment could open the door for people to take their employers to tribunals over their stance on a range of issues, from animal rights to feminism." Perhaps the most damning effect to climate change is the support the ruling will have for pundits against climate change agreements, Michael White shares this concern: "[The ruling] will have the anti-climate change lobby laughing their socks of. It's just what they contend everyday."

Climate change is clearly no laughing matter. It is certainly not a religion, it's merely a problem that must summon the courage of an entire planet to coordinate and collaborate to do good work. Scientific papers, religious texts, and court rulings don't mean anything if they don't enable meaningful action. So it is written, perhaps it will be done.

Afforestation of Deserts as a Solution to Climate Change

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Carlo Pascua) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 06:17:00 +0000

Creating a forest in the desert by pumping gallons of desalinated water a possible solution to climate change.

Picture this: desalinization plants turning salty ocean water to useable fresh water. Channel this water in pipes over hundreds of miles where fledgling and thirsty young eucalyptus trees grow in the desert, in fact, the biggest deserts on the planet: the Sahara and the Australian Outback. Global warming solved? Scientists Leonard Ornstein, Igor Aleinov, and David Rind think so in their paper titled: Irrigated afforestation of the Sahara and Australian Outback to end global warming. Is their solution worth consideration?

David Adam of the Guardian reports that the plan could cost $1.9T, more than twice the amount of schemes for Carbon Capture Sequestration (CCS) technology. Ornstein defends his idea: "When that's compared to figures like estimates of $800B per year for CCS, our plan looks like a loser. But CCS can address only about 20% of the problem at the $800B price. Mine addresses the whole thing. And CCS would involve a network of dangerous high-pressure pipelines coursing through the most developed neighbourhoods of our civilisations, compared to relatively benign water aqueducts in what are presently virtually uninhabited deserts."

However, this solution has major environmental problems that need further investigation. There is a concern among scientists that light energy from the sun will be absorbed in a dark green forest as opposed to being reflected back into space by the currently present white desert sand; there's a possibility that these forests would heat the planet. Environmentalists are also concerned that the deserts' ecosystem would be destroyed. Impacts on the environments caused by construction were not assessed in the study, which is a concern over the amount of carbon emissions caused by concrete production, transportation of materials, and fuel use. The desalinization plants and the water pumps would require enormous energy sources and assuming that this energy should be renewable (solar, wind, tidal,) the plan may be less feasible than just installing a large solar array in the desert. A life cycle assessment of Ornstein's afforestation plan not presented in the current paper is required to be convincing.

Despite costs and environment considerations, the overall problem with this scheme is that it has an all or nothing quality. If we go the afforestation route, CCS should be scrapped entirely based off costs. CCS and similar plans offer time to learn, room to adjust, and room to take detours regarding policy and implementation. Without this flexibility policy makers and world leaders may find the task of a global climate change pact more arduous than it is currently (which remains a nightmare). The authors admit themselves that the need for a climate change agreement is the "most difficult hurdle" in their plan's implementation: "International mechanisms for monitoring and managing (without mangling or strangling) such projects will be essential." The authors recommend, "We must bite the bullet. Global warming will not go away by itself."

Why Current Economic Climate Change Models Too Optimistic

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Carlo Pascua) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 06:14:00 +0000

Democrats go ahead with climate change bill despite Republicans who demand more time and analysis, a poor model-based strategy dissected.

Recently, Democrats of the Environment and Public Works committee pushed through a climate bill without a single Republican present. Seven Republicans, also members of the committee, boycotted the meetings to discuss the climate bill, claiming insufficient time to study it and demanding that the Environmental Protection Agency conduct further economic analysis. These politicians are duplicating practices of inaction and misinformation. Demanding more studies at this point in time is counterproductive. Often the work of climate change policy requires estimations on the future. Short of a crystal ball, climatologists and economists assess rather conservatively the possibilities of the future. Unfortunately, policy-makers take for granted the fact that many models regarding the economics of global warming understate the adverse effects and costs of climate change.

Freeman & Guzman (2009) have outlined in greater detail six reasons that current economic models are overly optimistic. Firstly, the model's optimism about temperature rise, which corresponds to the fact that many politicians consider studies with the mid-range increase of 2-3C in mind (highly optimistic). Secondly, asymmetry around point estimates is a concern because it leaves room for misinterpretation. For example, as temperature rises its costs to mitigate see an increasing (near exponential) rate. So when considering mitigation costs between 2.5 degrees C and 5 degrees C, the costs to mitigate are not twice as much at 5C, but are about ten times more. Thirdly, failure to account for catastrophic events undermines the studies' comprehensiveness. Fourthly, failure to account for non-market costs, like human health, implies they are negligible to these studies (hard to imagine human health to cost zero dollars). Fifthly, studies' failure to account for cross-sectoral impacts paints an incomplete picture especially in an interconnected world where one housing industry calamity in the US can put the whole world in peril. Sixthly, long-term projections (growth and productivity), which are hardly considered in economic models, could double the estimates of harm in many prominent studies to date.

Scientific practices can also put into question optimistic climate scenarios. Many scientists have to be organized across continents and often agree on conservative estimates in order to agree at all. The IPCC FAR (2007) report required 2,800 reviewers to agree on its 2,946 pages. The report was condensed into a 58-page summary for policy makers, which leaves out many considerations that are important for the reader to understand the limitations of the findings. An example of admitted guesswork on the first page the Working Group I Policy-Maker Summary (in tiny font) states: "Note that a number of uncertainty ranges in the Working Group I TAR (Third Assessment Report) corresponded to 2 standard deviations (95%), often using expert judgement."

Models are helpful, but only if they are used correctly. In the end, Democrats are right to push forward a climate change bill without Republican support; Americans have had more than a decade of non-participation in climate change agreements. Now it is time to act.

Meat Eating Disaster: Meat Production Bad for Climate Change

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Carlo Pascua) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:29:00 +0000

Lord Stern calls decries meat consumption to better the environment and protect it from escalating climate change.

Within the past week, Lord Stern has decried the consumption of meat and believes we are heading toward a future that will disdain such practice as much as we currently disdain drunk driving. Besides evidence that a carnivorous diet leads to health problems such as heart disease, its inefficient production process pollutes the environment and increases green house gases that cause climate change.

To demonstrate, Baroni et al. (2007) compared seven diets for their environmental impact, using the amount of energy required to collect resources for production as their benchmark. The diets were one normal diet, three non-organically grown diets: omnivorous; vegetarian; vegan; and three organically grown diets: omnivorous; vegetarian; vegan. The unsurprising find was that the energy input needed to produce a normal diet had a substantially greater negative environmental impact than other diets. Specifically a normal diet had twice the environmental impact of the non-organic omnivorous diet and nine times the environmental impact of the organic vegan diet. To summarize: meat eating does more harm to the environment than veggie bites.

The amount of resources to produce one pound of meat is staggering. An animal science professor at the University of California at Davis, Jim Oltjen, estimates that it take 390 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef. California, the US leader in dairy production, allocates 1/3 of all water resources to livestock, despite currently being in a water crisis. It takes 50 gallons of gas a year to produce a year's supply of meat (chicken & beef) for the average American, while a vegetarian's food supply requires a third less energy. Forty percent of the world's grain goes into feeding livestock. Vegfam (no, that's not a typo) reports that a 10-acre farm has enough land and resources to support 2 cattle, however, the land could also instead feed 60 people growing soy, 24 people growing wheat or 10 people growing corn. Water, energy, and land resources are currently rapidly depleting.

Much of those resources end up as animal waste. Livestock produce 158 million tons of animal waste and is the second largest source of human induced methane production on the planet (second to landfills), accounting for about 18% of all methane production. Methane is a greenhouse gas that is twenty times more effective at trapping solar radiation than carbon dioxide, this adds greatly to climate change and global warming. If animal feces aren't taken care of properly (and normally they aren’t) their nitrogen content could seep deep into the ground and taint the water supply.

Is Lord Stern's prediction right? To save the planet's resources and safeguard it from climate change, will the world go meat-free? Demand for meat is on the rise, resources for cattle are becoming less available, and considering cattle cannot survive in extreme heat, perhaps it's best to go vegan sooner than later. Easier said than done, but better a meat-free healthy planet than a meat-induced disaster.

Climate Change and the Future of Food: Soylent Green is People!

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Carlo Pascua) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:18:00 +0000

The problem of feeding billions of people in a world with an increasingly warmer climate is comparable to a fictional dystopian future

"Soylent Green is people!" shouted Charlton Heston's character at the end of the sci-fi thriller: Soylent Green (1973). The plot is set in the year 2020, a future where environmental disaster and overpopulation has strained the food supply trying to feed 100 billion people living on earth. It is a time where large corporations provide rations to the poor with processed wafer chips called Soylent Green- a food wrongfully marketed as being made from high-energy plankton. Coinciding with environmental disaster, climate change would cripple the production of food in a plethora of ways ranging from extreme floods and droughts, to migration of animals and people, and extreme high and low temperatures, just to name a few. Food production of meat and crops will be adversely affected, but it makes for a dystopian possibility not too distant from the movie's story.

Recently, Lord Stern publicly denounced the consumption of meat regarding the practice as detrimental to the environment and predicts a society without meat. Meat production inefficiently uses land, water, and energy resources. These resources could feed much more people if instead used to produce foodstuff from plant crops only. However, the problem of worldwide hunger is a result of poverty much more so than environmental mismanagement. Yet, the future of climate change would make the situation more distressing.

The hardest nations to be hit with the effects of climate change will be the people in the Tropics (The latitudes 23 degrees north and south of the equator) which unfortunately is where a majority of the poor developing nations reside. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization calls for an annual $83 billion dollars of spending for poor nations to meet the needs of a 9.1 Billion population projected by the year 2050. For China and India alone, spending will need to be $29 billion annually. Although a majority (75%) of this funding will be put forth by private farmers, their efforts to increase production are hindered by poor infrastructure (roads, facilities) and will need public support and funding. The possible food shortage makes solutions like genetically modified (GM) food more economically necessary. GM food is an idea not too far fetched from the fictional plot of Soylent Green.

Growing population plus food shortages plus climate change spell a global problem. Increased funding plus GM food are possible global solutions. As of now, the UN fund for climate change mitigation is abysmally in the low million-dollar range. An estimated $610 billion dollars are needed for the world to adapt to climate change and renewable energy, a number which equates to the 1% of global GDP popularized as a climate change target set by the ominous Stern Review. Genetically modified, however, food is vastly unpopular, but minds may change when they are starved for food. Would world leaders ever think to turn to the solution of Soylent Green? Hopefully not, but just the thought is enough to consider a shift away from meat production all together.

Polluting Firms Will Be Charged In the US

noreply@blogger.com (Justmeans) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 06:09:00 +0000

In an attempt to curb the harmful effects of climate change, the San Francisco Bay Area passed a new rule that will require business organizations to pay a fee on the basis of the amount of carbon dioxide they emit. Under this new rule, big greenhouse gas emitters will have to pay over 50,000 dollars every year, otherwise less than 1 dollar will be charged to most firms. Due to this rule more than 2500 business organizations got affected. While some experts believe that this move will act as an effective model for all states in the US, others are of view that it might pose hindrance in exercising tougher emission targets across California.

This rule has been considered first of its kind in the United States. Voted in by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District of San Francisco, this fee covers nine counties and 2500 small as well as large businesses. Companies measure and report emission levels before they are charged 4.4 cents for each ton of CO2 released by them. Oil refineries and power plants in San Francisco will be the biggest payers as they are the largest emitter of greenhouse gases across the world.

Recently, a fees was attached to greenhouse gas emission by the State of California and by the end of this year, the state will also start charging companies for greenhouse gas emission. The main objective of imposing this fee is to help the state pay for its regulatory expenses that come along with the greenhouse gas reduction goals announced recently. Approximately 400 companies producing, refining, using or distributing coal, natural gas, electricity and oil will be affected by this fee. A plan has been proposed to bring down the rate of emission 25% by the end of 2020. If implemented in a proper manner, this new rule will help the state of California raise over 63 million dollars in the first year. The companies that have been targeted under this new rule represent more than 85% of greenhouse gas emissions in California.