greenpropaganda (BETA)

The Clean Power Plan

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 21:27:00 +0000

August 12, 2015

Washington, D.C.

Wayne Pan

Yesterday, for the first time since President Obama announced the Clean Power Plan at a White House press conference last week, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy stepped out into the public to discuss the new regulations and their potential impacts on the US economy, public health, and global climate change.

After a sober update on the on-going problems in the Animas River in Colorado, McCarthy launched into a spirited and enthusiastic talk about the long road the EPA has taken to arrive at the Clean Power Plan. In particular, she lauded the process, which she described as one of “unprecedented engagement” with stakeholders from across the spectrum. Many years of work went into the drafting of this plan, and it was clear from her remarks that she was confident that the regulations would both be challenged in court, and upheld in court – at one point slyly noting that the lawyers in the room could happily begin to sift through the EPAs responses to the thousands of public comments received during the review period.

The Plan puts in place carbon emission limits on power plants for the first time in US history. The EPA has determined target reduction rates for each state based on their own energy mix, and each state will have the flexibility to determine their own path to achieving those reductions. When all is said and done though, the Plan puts the country on a path to reducing carbon emissions by 32% in 2035, using 2005 as a baseline.

While these reductions fall well short of what many scientists see as necessary, is still clearly a major step forward for the US. Not only does it finally set down a line in the sand that says the country is serious about tackling climate change, it also returns legitimacy to the US’ role in international negotiations. The path forward in Paris is looking increasingly clear and the outlook is positive, although if history serves as any guide, getting an agreement that truly moves the needle on global greenhouse gases will still surely prove to be a mighty struggle.

Ironically, the staunchest environmentalists are only giving the Clean Power Plan a tentative and rather unenthusiastic thumbs-up. Naomi Klein, in an interview on resilience.org says, “there is a huge gap between what Obama is saying about this threat, about it being the greatest threat of our time… but the measures that have been unveiled are simply inadequate.” She goes on to note that limiting global warming to less than two degrees will require America to reduce annual carbon output by 8-10 percent a year, but that this plan maxes out at 6 percent. It is a “carbon gap” and it’s “huge.”

That has not stopped the opposition from coming out in full force against the Clean Power plan. Much of the initial opposition has come, without surprise, from the right and, more understandably, from coal-dependent states. States where coal still plays a large role in the energy mix, or where coal extraction plays a major role in the local economy, like West Virginia, Kentucky, and Indiana, have all announced they will challenge the law in court and not submit plans to meet the new mandates.

For many, the Clean Power Plan is an all-out assault on coal, and while this is not technically true – McCarthy pointed out that many means exist for states to determine how best to cut their emissions, including credit trading or energy efficiency – it is true that any low-carbon energy plan that can address climate change will necessarily be made up of much less coal electricity. This is precisely because coal is an extremely polluting source of energy – one that still accounts for nearly 40% of America’s electricity.

When asked pointedly what people living in coal dependent communities could expect, McCarthy referenced the President’s hopes that coal communities will receive injections of aid in order to transition away from coal. Her answer revealed as much in what she didn’t say as what she did. The truth is that coal is not an industry of the future. Across the world, countries are moving away from coal and towards less polluting sources of energy. BP’s Energy Outlook notes that coal will be the slowest growing source of energy by 2035, growing at under 1% per year. While the coal industry will most certainly not disappear overnight – China’s energy mix is still projected to contain at least 50-60% coal twenty years from now – it is an industry that will inevitably go away.

Contrary to critics, this will not happen because of the Clean Power Plan. Michael Bloomberg points out in a recent op-ed that Big Coal has been steadily declining for over a decade, due largely to a general public aversion to the highly polluting industry and the fact that the transition away from coal has not caused energy prices to spike or a net loss of jobs.

McCarthy mentioned a number of times that the EPA had developed the Plan in light of ongoing changes in the industry. She said that states and utilities knew the mandates were doable because many of them were already in the process of shifting away from the most polluting forms of power. Indeed, McCarthy and the EPA sees the new regulations as a form of common currency for industry, providing a long term signal for where the country (and industry) is moving in terms of energy. Some may kick and scream, but there are already some who are already successfully embracing change.

Far from what detractors say about government regulation, this type of national clarity is exactly what drives innovation and growth. Opportunities are created when new parameters for an industry are developed and disseminated. Businesses with the greatest foresight have been demanding more clarity on carbon and the economy for years now because they understand that knowing where the goalposts are will allow them to best position themselves for the future.

Changing a complex system with entrenched interests is never easy, but good regulations with sufficient market freedom can jump-start systemic change. There will no doubt need to be modifications to the Plan as feedback loops adjust to the new conditions, but in light of America’s tenacious unwillingness to make any meaningful federal-level changes to our carbon economy, the Clean Power Plan is a welcome step in the right direction.

Accor takes a huge step...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 14:28:00 +0000

Accor Hotels, one of the largest hotel groups in the world, takes a huge step with the adoption of their new "PLANET 21" program for sustainable hotel development. While concrete conservation goals remain relatively unambitious it seems (due to structural reasons based on the realities of hotel economics - large up front investments coupled with low per guest costs and a focus on occupancy rates, issues that I researched for my Master's thesis) one part of the initiative stuck out in my mind as very promising. Namely, utilizing the high visibility of hotels to enlist the participation of guests and also to educate them. Incidentally, this is the idea that I originally wanted to write my thesis on, but during the course of my research, I found that the industry was very far from considering this. How Accor goes about implementing this part of their plan has me very curious. I'll keep you posted.

Find the original re-published article here on Greenbiz.

In defense of socialism?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 22:44:00 +0000

This interview with Naomi Klein over at Solutions is great food for thought. Below are some of her main points, which are all rational and interesting:

1. The numbers of people who "believe in" climate change in the US are actually falling. These numbers are correlated with ideology (which isn't surprising) but the way she describes the groupings might be. What we traditionally think of as "left" leaning people, she calls communitarian - those who believe we live together and share resources on a global scale, and who are upset by disparities and disadvantaged populations. These people obviously believe in climate change. Those on the "right" hold a more individualistic view or hierarchical view will tend to not believe in climate change. She essentially boils the debate down to an ideological one, with climate change serving as a proxy for the battle between two competing ways of looking at human, nation-state, and global relations.

This is a slightly different way of looking at it, not entirely new, but an intriguing perspective that can change a LOT of how we approach the issue.

2. The market will never solve the problem. She suggests that contrary to what we've been led to believe by our high-profile environmental groups, markets will never be able to undertake everything that needs to be done to really combat climate change.

Although she doesn't out and out say this, I think this is because markets are inherently individualistic. Cap and trade is great, but what we need is interventions to move our systems away from what they look like now - mass-transit infrastructure, changes in our perspectives on housing, and I would add, food production, manufacturing, and industrial design to just name a few.

3. "Who is demanding growth year after year?"

I've begun to really incorporate this line of logic into my thinking and debates in the past few years, as I think this is one of the key structural issues with our current system. As long as we demand unreasonable, indefinite growth, we're going to continue making short-term, damaging decisions. While I agree that corporations are not people, I think they generally make decisions like people do - in common sense and practical ways. Given their circumstances, they will undertake a set of choices and behaviors where long-term consequences are never even factored into the process. This must change.

A case in point - my parents' microwave recently broke - or at least started sounding like it was going to. When I called to find out if it was possible to fix it, they quoted prices to me that made it nearly impossible for a rational person to choose to repair over new. The cost to have someone come out to LOOK at the thing would be about 50% of a new microwave, and there was no guarantees on how much parts and labor would then cost, much less any guarantee that the microwave would then last much longer anyway. So, a normal person would just replace the microwave, despite the fact that it likely needs just one small part changed. Even worse, the microwave is a "hood" version, which combines microwave plus exhaust system for the stove. Thus, I'm forced to throw out a LOT of good stuff because of one small problem that they've priced unreasonably. Further, the company has no responsibility, incentive, or interest in taking the existing piece back and making use of it's component parts. So we essentially have to landfill it? How is this at all rational?

For those who will point out other disposal options that require ME to do hours of homework and then drive 20 miles to take care of it, I say - really? In our convenience-oriented society, can we really expect most regular folks to do this? This is where EPR (extended producer responsibility) really needs to happen, but in our country that's considered more regulation, stifling competition, and anti-jobs/anti-growth. See the problem?

Ms. Klein's answer is to push for a wholly changed system, utilizing the recent groundswell movements and popular demonstration to place pressure on current power structures. It's a very interesting message and one that I think I can get behind. Read the interview here, then tell me what you think!

Hope for tigers?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 11:33:00 +0000

"Over the past century, tiger numbers have dropped from about 100,000 to about 4,000 tigers in the wild today. And over the past decade, there has been a 40% decline, with conservationists warning that some populations were expected to disappear completely within 20 years unless urgent action was taken."

This isn't the first time that I've written about tigers, a conservation failure story that makes my heart break every time I read anything about it. Our international systems have clearly failed the tigers, from conservation to enforcement to eliminating demand. Do the meetings since the end of 2010 represent a corner that we've turned as an international community? Or is it more talk that will lead nowhere? Only time will tell, but unfortunately the 4000 wild tigers left don't have much time left. Will we let these majestic animals disappear? Will we be responsible for their extinction? Full BBC article here.

A great PSA print ad from Surfrider

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 07:32:00 +0000

A friend of mine shared this great PSA print ad from Surfrider today on Facebook, and I thought I'd share it here also. Well done, high impact advertisement that really gets people thinking.

Mr. Coffee Meet Mr. Mushroom

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 05:44:00 +0000

Apparently these guys have been getting a lot of press ever since they started their company, but it's a refreshing and heartening story. They've managed to create a whole business out of trash as they say.

'The two speak in terms of value, the value in things that otherwise go to waste. In Back To The Roots’ warehouse, even the racks where they store their mushroom kits come from somebody else’s waste. Diverting all that has built the business. Says Arora with the pride of a true scavenger, “Our whole company is literally built on trash.” '

Basically, they get paid to take used coffee grounds away from cafes, use the coffee grounds to grow mushrooms which they then sell to high-end supermarkets or to make DIY mushroom growing kits they sell to bored or green-thumbed homeowners, and then make the now twice-used coffee grounds into a high quality fertilizer mixed with fungus roots. They're expecting $5 million in sales this coming year, just a few years into the business.

That's what I call a pretty decent idea - although it's not a new one. Industrial eco-systems have been explored and used all over the world. This is just a rather innovative urban one, based on our changing middle-class trends of proliferating cafes, eating local, and eating gourmet. At it's heart though, it's moving from "managing" waste to thinking about waste as "resources." If only more people could do this.

As one of the founders says: “This whole country revolves around use and just throwing things away,” Arora adds. “Everything’s just one-time use. That’s not going to last. It’s not sustainable.”

He's both wrong and he's right. It's not just "this whole country" (America) that revolves around a disposable culture... it's essentially the whole world now. And it is most certainly not sustainable.

Read a full article about Back to the Roots here.

New Seafood Watch Guides are Out!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 19:40:00 +0000

Know more about the seafood you're eating and what you should avoid. Get the new 2012 updated Seafood Watch guides from the Monterey Bay Aquarium here. They have an Android version too! :)

Kudos to Shangri-la

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 17:40:00 +0000

Well it looks like the Shangri-la hotel group is joining the Peninsula in being on the cutting edge of sustainable seafood by cutting out shark's fin and other big-name, big-impact fish like bluefin tuna and chilean sea bass. (Note, who is still serving chilean sea bass?!?! I thought we won that fight 7 years ago! The world-wide popularity of chilean sea bass wreaked havoc on the slow-growing, deep-sea Patagonian toothfish - the real name - fisheries last decade.)

In any case, while it may be a bit late, it is certainly better than never, and I applaud the Shangri-la for taking this step. I think it is ALWAYS important for aspirational brands to take high-profile stands on important issues, as they can help change what we all "expect" the good life to include. In this case, the Shang (and the Penninsula) have definitely sent the message - you don't have to fin to be in.

"Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts today announced its ‘Sustainable Seafood Policy’ including the commitment to cease serving shark fin in all of its operated restaurants as well as accepting new orders for shark fin products in banqueting with immediate effect." Read the full press release here.

Green, mean, Seville!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 16:36:00 +0000

I was a huge fan of Seville when I went there during the winter of 2008. It was just such a sunny, happy, walkable city, with some gorgeous historical buildings, a wonderful old city, great food, vibrant modern interiors in gorgeous old buildings, and of course, flamenco. The Plaza de Espana, although little used now, was a stunning piece of architecture that I couldn't take my eyes off of.

Now, I find this article on BBC, talking about how Seville is now one of the greenest cities around, and I can't help but say... "just one more huge reason to visit one of the coolest cities in Spain."

From the article: Kick-started by proactive city mayor, Alfredo Sánchez Monteseirín in 2007, the lightning pace of Seville’s “greening” defies its laidback fiesta and siesta image. In the span of just five years, the Sevillanos have instituted a community bike-sharing scheme, a surface tram, an underground metro, two high-speed train links, a pilot electric car programme and -- 20km away in Sanlúcar la Mayor -- the first commercial solar power plant in Europe.

Eat healthier, but how?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 09:48:00 +0000

Tis the season to make resolutions. No doubt many of you are resolving to get healthier, to exercise more and eat better and take better care of yourself. There are likely even some of you who are going to make it a quest to eat more organic, stay out of the middle of the supermarket, and hit up Whole Foods more.

Before you do though, read this article from the New York Times and learn a bit more about the effects of what you might be buying. Not all organic produce is created equally, and unfortunately the mass market acceptance of organic being better has resulted in globalized organic production systems that are likely much less "better" for the earth than the evil industrial agriculture complex that it is replacing.

“People are now buying from a global commodity market, and they have to be skeptical even when the label says ‘organic’ — that doesn’t tell people all they need to know,” said Frederick L. Kirschenmann, a distinguished fellow at the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University. He said some large farms that have qualified as organic employed environmentally damaging practices, like planting only one crop, which is bad for soil health, or overtaxing local freshwater supplies.

Yet, far from discouraging people from resolving to make their food footprints smaller by buying organic, I'm going to press in the other direction. Organic production, even global organic production on an industrial scale is bound to be better than traditional industrial agriculture with its high dependence on petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides. Yet it doesn't make organic foods the end all be all. While some people may be purchasing organic products just for the perceived health benefits, the truth is we must examine not only how produce affects us, but how the produce we choose affects others.

Organic is fine, but I agree with my good friend Anthony that the real solution is to reconnect ourselves to our food systems. We need to take a more local, seasonal approach to our food. If you live somewhere that doesn't produce tomatoes in December, then start acquainting yourself with the wonders of kale or winter squashes. Far from being something limiting, eating locally and seasonally can actually expand your horizons and provide you with incredible opportunities to try new things. Check out Anthony's blog for more resources and discussion on the benefits of eating local. And this year, when you resolve to eat better, resolve to eat more local and seasonal too. Just try it.

Finally, on a separate note... to everyone who has been reading my posts this year, thanks so much for the support! Have a happy new year, and hoping to hear more from everyone in 2012!

Good news for sharks!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 11:53:00 +0000

Good news for sharks as WWF takes the fight to restaurants, hotels, and corporations that serve as endpoint distributors in the heart of the shark trade, Hong Kong. Their most recent initiative has garnered 112 corporate signatories who pledge "no trade, no promotion and no consumption of shark fin," with another 97 hotels and restaurants participating in their "Alternative Shark-free Menu" program. You can read more about WWF's work here.

Best of all though, is the support shown by the Peninsula Hotels group, who have pledged to remove sharks fin from their menus entirely starting January 1, 2012. I've always thought that it would be nice to be a Peninsula customer and lead the type of wealthy, cosmopolitan lifestyle that accompanies one. While this might go completely against a more muted environmentalist stand, I don't know that environmentalism has to mean a life without luxuries. This is why the support of a high-profile, luxury hotel group like the Peninsula is so important in the fight against sharks fin. Sharks fin is as aspirational a dish as you get - for a billion Chinese people, serving sharks fin is not merely a culinary statement, it is a status statement. So is the Peninsula. So, let's hope that one status statement can help rid us of the other, much less environmentally friendly one! One more reason to be a Peninsula customer. :)

New Marine Reserve Gives Hope

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:40:00 +0000

More good news for the seas, often exceedingly rare these days! Australia has proposed to create a new marine reserve that covers a goodly portion of the oceans, although the sheer scale and huge numbers probably seem more impressive than they really are, considering just how much of the Earth's surface is actually ocean. "The proposed Coral Sea Commonwealth Marine Reserve will cover 989,842 square kilometers (around 380,000 square miles) -- an area roughly one tenth the size of the U.S." According to the article, environmental groups applaud the move but are calling for the entire Coral Sea to be protected. Given that this portion has been set aside, I wonder what is preventing the government from just going all the way and protecting the whole thing? Could the other half of the Sea be home to more than just rare corals and fish spawning grounds? Could they, like the Spratleys, be home to deposits of oil and other resources?

Another climate surprise!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 07:12:00 +0000

For the skeptics at least. New research led by some well-respected scientists from my alma mater are going to be publishing a paper that re-examines world-wide weather data. Their findings? That global warming is indeed happening. Surprise surprise.

Their analysis, using new methodologies that differ from the analyses done by government agencies and the group at the swirling center of "climategate" last year, turned in remarkably similar results. Although the forthcoming paper from the Berkeley Earth Project has not yet been published or peer-reviewed, it seems that the results will turn out to largely be trustworthy. So, I wonder what the "scientists" who disagree with climate change have to say now?

Fish Crusaders

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 19:57:00 +0000

Recently ran across this great article about fish crusaders in the Bay Area who are trying to change the way that fishermen, restaurants, and diners relate to seafood. It's a very interesting read with lots of good information on why things are so hard and how much further we have to go. However, it's not an article about pessimism. There is hope and a chance, if we all do our part and play our roles.

From the end of the article:
"Lastly, everyone at every step along the way has got to ask more questions. “How was this fish caught?” is the most important one. If the waiter doesn’t know, ask the chef, and if you don’t hear the right answer (and let’s be clear: “I don’t know” is not the right answer), order something else. Let the restaurant know that sustainability matters to you. If enough people start asking the right questions, even indifferent chefs will find their way to people like Belov."

Read the full article here. (You may have to open it a few times, seems their server is constantly having problems.)

Lend your voice to fight trawling

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 18:05:00 +0000

Help leaders understand that hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions or more, care about protecting our vulnerable ocean habitats and support restrictions on destructive trawling. Lend your voice to the cause through this Avaaz campaign and let world leaders know!

Why you should care about Keystone XL

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 11:10:00 +0000

Our energy policy is a mess. This stems largely from our consumption patterns and from fear-mongering by entrenched corporate interests and the politicians they feed. The on-going debate about the Keystone XL pipeline project in America, which will bring oil extracted from tar sands in pristine northern Canadian lands (and have already extracted giant environmental tolls on the affected areas) is actually a small bit in a much larger debate.

That debate is where our energy future lies.

As many environmentalists have said for years now, we must invest in truly renewable energies. As many industry experts have said for years now, it will be decades before renewable energies can provide the amount of energy that we need. The truth of course, is somewhere in-between. It does not take a genius to see that we cannot ramp up alternative energies at a pace sufficient to eliminate fossil fuel usage in the near-term 5 year range. Duh. Yet, the alternative narrative, that we just don't have the resources to plow into making alternative energies more cost-effective or attractive is false also. We may not be able to generate enough energy in the near term, but it's better to get started on that road now rather than in the future, right?

Instead, there is much money being plowed into alternative fossil fuels. As this article from the BBC on shale gas shows, we should be very wary of our love affair with these sources of energy. These sources do nothing to wean our planet off highly polluting and unsustainable use of fossil fuels, and they are extremely damaging to the environment at the point of extraction as well as through their entire life-cycle too.

The truth is, our solutions lie in reducing fossil fuel usage, ramping up and investing some of those billions of dollars of oil profits into wind and solar technologies (er, tax oil company profits anyone? as opposed to giving tax breaks to them? uh, duh?), and - here is the great big huge grey elephant in the room - change the way we consume energy. The fact is, we have exported a societal paradigm to the rest of the world built upon inexhaustible supplies of cheap fossil fuels, which admittedly contain more energy per unit of measure than just about any other fuel source.

How else do we explain the ridiculous proliferation of automobiles carrying single passengers around glorified moving parking lots (aka roads) around the world? Or the incessant building of concrete boxes with no thought to air flows or self-cooling and require around the clock air conditioning or heating? Or the addiction to plastics and other disposable items made for our "convenience" but that are instead just burying our planet under incredible heaps of wasted resources?

We must address energy consumption. Beyond just cutting personal electricity usage or even mandating better fuel standards, we must acknowledge that the era of cheap energy has passed and realign our societies to accommodate a new reality where we make choices to maximize the efficiency of our energy usage. This is why Keystone XL matters. Instead of acknowledging and putting our money into achieving a standard of living given this vision of the future, the Keystone pipeline is the last gasp of a system clinging desperately to a disappearing reality. Can we access ever more strange sources of fossil fuels and continue our addiction to them for another few decades, damned be the environmental impacts and the viability of the society we leave future generations? Yes, we probably can. But should we?

Are you kidding me?!?!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 06:33:00 +0000

In one of the few happy posts (well, sort of...) apparently the Israeli Sand Cat has been successfully bred in captivity. Since the animal is already extinct in the wild, captive breeding programs and eventual re-introduction may be its only hope. And what a hope it is. Look at this little guy! How crazy adorable! I don't even LIKE cats very much. Yikes. You can find more photos here.

Coca-cola, advocating!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 09:19:00 +0000

I was going to a meeting today in a different part of Manila when our driver pointed out a new billboard along EDSA - one of the major (and most congested and therefore most polluted) roads in the city. It was a billboard sponsored by Coca-cola, white and green, with an outline of the iconic Coca-cola bottle. Nothing unusual there - but upon closer look, this billboard was co-sponsored by the World Wide Fund for Nature - or the World Wildlife Fund as we still know it in the US. And turns out, the green parts of the billboard were actually made with plants, not paint. Across the middle of it, read "This billboard absorbs air pollution."

Greenwashing? Sure. Interesting? Yes, also. I'm not sure it's a great piece of advocacy, since I'm not sure what action follows, but it obviously (as proven by my driver pointing it out to me) is a point of conversation for people. Getting people talking about pollution is better than not, isn't it? How many kudos does Coca-cola deserve for doing this though?

Check out a local blog entry (and pictures of the billboard) here.

The impending disaster in our seas

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 16:49:00 +0000

The information coming out about our ocean ecosystems is getting worse and worse. A couple of weeks ago, an article in BBC highlighted the conditions of worldwide coral reefs, showing that changing carbon conditions were threatening the health of corals, many of which are extremely sensitive to changes in their ocean environment, including temperature and acidity. According to the article: "More carbon in the seas makes water more acidic and threatens the diversity and ability of coral reefs to grow."

Around the same time, closer to my current home, a hugely sad and disturbing piece of news about poached black corals and sea turtles in southern Philippines was also reported. "Experts believe that about 7,000 hectares of a “reef complex” were destroyed when poachers harvested 161 sea turtles and over 21,000 sea shells and black corals off the waters of Cotabato province." 7000 hectares is roughly double the size of Metro Manila - just an incredible level of destruction, by any measure. More recently, reports indicate that coral cover in the Spratly Islands (better known as the islands causing a merry band of David-sized nations to stand up against China's Goliath) are degrading dramatically. "The study noted that only one of the island’s 10 stations had good coral cover at 50.50 percent....They said Pag-asa Island’s low coral cover might be the result of the destructive fishing methods used in the vicinity, as observed by the islanders and local fishermen."

Yet this week brings the most alarming, most comprehensive, most trusthworthy, and thus, most damning alarms of all. The International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) releases their report from proceedings earlier this year to attempt to get a more holistic view of the state of the oceans, and the results have most definitely NOT been happy. According to TIME Magazine:

"...while news of the Earth's impending doom can sometimes seem exaggerated, there's one environmental disaster that never gets the coverage it really deserves: the state of the oceans. Most people know that wild fisheries are dwindling, and we might know that low-oxygen aquatic dead zones are blooming around the planet's most crowded coasts. But the oceans appear to be undergoing fundamental changes — many of them for the worse — that we can barely understand, in part because we barely understand that vast blue territory that covers 70% of the globe."

The article goes on: "According to the authors, we are "at high risk for entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history." It's not just about overfishing or marine pollution or even climate change. It's all of those destructive factors working cumulatively, and occurring much more rapidly than scientists had expected. "The findings are shocking," said Alex Rogers, the scientific director of IPSO. "We are looking at consequences for humankind that will impact in our lifetime, and worse, our children's and generations beyond that."

Having a high level scientific conference make conclusions of such drastic gloom is unusual, but their conclusions should not necessarily be surprising to anyone who has been paying attention. In fact, the three cases I highlighted above shows that our oceans are facing threats from: climate change, pollution, destructive fishing practices, and poaching and general human folly.

I've been talking about the dangers our fisheries and oceans are facing for the better part of a decade now. Most of the people who meet me are quickly introduced to one of my seemingly stranger quirks - not eating seafood. My own personal form of action-advocacy, my full-scale avoidance of anything from the sea invariably leads to questions about my reasoning and a discussion about the state of the oceans.

Faced with this new report though, my personal-scale crusade to save the oceans seems woefully inadequate, quaint even. It is clear that if there has ever been an area where there is a need for strong multi-lateral international bodies capable of not just making but implementing policy - this is it. Given our recent track record with environmental issues though, you'll forgive me for being pessimistic.

Obviously, I'm going to continue my boycott of seafood and continue with the advocacy that accompanies it. I urge everyone to do the same. While it seems inconceivable that the deep blue abyss really could be in trouble, this indeed does seem to be the case. We must all begin to take the issue seriously and do what we can. Yet with as dreary as the situation is, a simplistic boycott of seafood seems to no longer be enough. There must be more that we can do - indeed, more that we must do. But what? Suggestions please!

For all the diver's out there...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 02 May 2011 18:23:00 +0000

If you love diving, if you love coral reefs, if you love sea life... you should stand up, take notice, and figure out what you can do to help. Listen to the NPR story on the plight of the world's coral reefs: World's Coral Reefs Facing Serious Threats.

But coral reefs are so much more important than most people realize. They are home to incredible amounts of biodiversity density, more than even the vaunted rain forests of the Amazon or Borneo. They support fisheries, marine mammals, crustacean populations - nearly all of sea life itself. They also grow absurdly slowly, are incredibly sensitive to changes in their environment, and are dangerously threatened now. Yes, they are actually living creatures, corals. The only reason we don't care more about them is because most of us never see them, and never see the real impact they have on all of our marine eco-systems (and it must be said, on billions of people around the world who live in coastal regions, consume seafood or marine products, or are somehow connected to either of the above - which is nearly everyone.)

Just because you can't see it, doesn't mean you can't do anything about it.

A rare piece of good news!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 03:45:00 +0000

Maybe not THAT rare, but still, it's nice to read about conservation "wins" in this day and age, where it seems that the environment is getting beat up on by everything and everyone.

"Almost 25 years after the California condor went extinct in the wild and dwindled to just 27 birds in captivity, North America's largest flying bird is on the verge of a watershed moment: Its total population is projected to hit 400 this spring, including 200 birds thriving in the wild later this year." Full article here on CNN.

It's taken decades (I remember reading about the California Condor when I was in kindergarten!) but we're finally getting back to where we want to be. Good job to everyone involved, and it shows that with a concerted effort and the right resources, we can reverse some of the most tragic situations.

2011

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 08:39:00 +0000

Hey! It's Earth Day today. What are you doing for the planet and the environment today? At least go out there and give a tree a hug! :)

Still rings true....

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 07:42:00 +0000

"Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot run away; and if they could, they would still be destroyed - chased and hunted down as long as fun or a dollar could be got out of their bark hides. Branching horns, or magnificent bole backbones. Few that fell trees plant them; nor would planting avail much towards getting back anything like the noble primeval forests. It took more than three thousand years to make some of the trees in these Western woods - trees that are still standing in perfect strength and beauty, waving and singing in the mighty forests of the Sierra. Through all the wonderful, eventful centuries God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand straining, leveling tempests and floods; but he cannot save them from fools - only Uncle Sam can do that." John Muir

Farming goes Sci-Fi

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 10:02:00 +0000

"The perfect crop field could be inside a windowless building with meticulously controlled light, temperature, humidity, air quality and nutrition. It could be in a New York high-rise, a Siberian bunker, or a sprawling complex in the Saudi desert."

Researchers in the Netherlands are working on perfecting completely artificial growing techniques in buildings that have essentially no contact with natural environments. They use LED lighting with specific UV frequencies and timed to optimal growth periods tailored to individual plant types to boost growth. These buildings take the greenhouse concept (where food is grown in environments that it normally would not, with the help of protection from a building) to whole new heights where sunlight (and the energy that plants waste to combat the destructive, non productive wavelengths there of) is out.

It's sci-fi farming for the moon folks!

Yet the researchers say yields are up, resource usage and water waste is down, locations are flexible, and that this is the future of food - grown locally in high-rises and warehouses, year round, with near infinite options. Read the entire article here on NPR, and then decide for yourself: is going organic in probably the most unnatural way you can think of good for food, for us, and for the planet?

The Costs of Nuclear

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 03:58:00 +0000

There has been a long-running debate over nuclear power for many years - many years before the current crisis in Japan introduced a whole new generation of people to the dangers of nuclear power generation, and many years before the myopic focus on carbon emission levels made nuclear trendy again. Here, in this article in Solutions magazine, authors push for the merits of nuclear to be analyzed objectively, through a complete cost analysis and by eliminating subsidies that make the energy seem cheaper than it is.

"How would nuclear power fare if the subsidies were removed and the full costs internalized? It is hard to predict, but the answer to whether nuclear power can be part of the energy solution lies in how the full costs of nuclear compare with the full costs of fossil fuel, hydro, and renewable energy. For example, most people believe that nuclear energy is either completely free of greenhouse gases or contributes negligible amounts. However, this is not true when one considers the entire life cycle of the nuclear power complex. A 2008 study showed that if the price of nuclear energy included the cost of greenhouse gases, nuclear power would cost more than not only fossil fuel technologies but also wind energy.7 Including the cost of the risk of accidents and waste disposal, as discussed above, would raise the price significantly further."

Amen to that!

Yet, for as much sense as this makes, the truth is that full cost analysis and internalizing real costs require a complete re-thinking of how business is done. The real difficulty here is not how much work it would take to actually re-think business, but how much resistance to the very idea exists. There is an entrenched and influential group of people who are very much opposed to changing how the system works, the same group of people who benefit from the system.

Don't get me started on how all of this ties back together with our on-going national debt issues and financial woes. Because, like it or not, the increasing inequality in wealth, grossly distorted wage gaps, and wild generation of false wealth - these things are all tied together in what is becoming increasingly apparent as an economic system and society gone wrong.

Ooops, sorry, a little Paul Ryan-inspired rant there. :)