Climate Change

Friday, June 27, 2008

FEDERAL POLICY: Court says no deadline for EPA on global warming. A federal appeals court refused Thursday to make a resistant Bush administration speed up a decision on whether greenhouse gases and global warming threaten public health and welfare. Associated Press. 27 June 2008.

STATE POLICY (CA): State renews climate battle. California's next great experiment starts today. The state Air Resources Board will outline this morning a plan to slash greenhouse gas emissions 30 percent by 2020 and prepare the state for much deeper cuts in the years beyond. Sacramento Bee, California. 27 June 2008.

CANADA - TARGETS: Greenhouse gas reductions within reach, B. C. premier says. British Columbia is well on its way to achieving its goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions and if world oil prices remain as high as they are, the province will have no trouble hitting that target, says Premier Gordon Campbell. Canadian Press. 27 June 2008.

FEDERAL POLICY - SOLAR: Citing need for assessments, U.S. freezes solar energy projects. Faced with a surge in the number of proposed solar power plants, the federal government has placed a moratorium on new solar projects on public land until it studies their environmental impact, expected to take two years. New York Times. 27 June 2008. [Registration Required]

(By Sasha Abelson, Guest Blogger to the Climate Program)

I have been searching for the right word to describe a particular phenomenon and concluded that such a word does not (yet) exist.  The phenomenon I am speaking of is as follows: upon becoming aware of a piece of information previously unknown to you, you become hyper-sensitized to that information.  You now to see it, hear it and read it everywhere.

Take the nurdle for example.  I had never heard the word until a scientist from Heal the Bay mentioned the nurdle in her lecture[i].  Nurdles are small plastic pellets which are melted down to create nearly everything made of plastic.  These nurdles escape from factories and often end up on beaches where they become a significant source of ocean and beach pollution.  Nurdles are frequently mistaken by marine life for fish eggs, and find their way into their digestive tracts causing starvation.  After learning of the nurdle, no longer is a stroll on the beach just a stroll on the beach.  Now, my eye cannot avoid spotting these tiny balls of brightly colored plastic.  This is what I have coined the Nurdle Effect. 

Friday, June 20, 2008

BIOFUELS: Idemitsu, Mitsubishi To Mass-Produce Non-Food Biofuel 6/20/2008 - Idemitsu Kosan Co. and Mitsubishi Corp. plan to mass-produce biofuel that does not rely on corn or other food materials, bringing into operation one of the world's largest plants as early as 2011, The Nikkei reported in its Friday morning edition.  Biofuel demand has surged in light of soaring crude oil prices and efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The U.S. and Brazil account for 75% of world bioethanol production, with corn and sugar cane as the primary components. Some see this as contributing to the rise in food prices around the world. For more read Clean Technology Investor 6/20/08

RUSSIA - TARGETS: Russia To Back Japanese Method For Targeting CO2 Cuts  6/20/2008 - The Russian government intends to support the Japanese approach to setting targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, said Arkady Dvorkovich, an aide to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, The Nikkei reported in its Friday morning editions.  The Russians will announce their support for the Japanese system, which would first establish goals by industrial sector, at next month's Group of Eight meeting in Japan.
Reductions in global warming gas emissions must be achieved through efforts from the ground up, rather than from the top down, Dvorkovich said. For more read Clean Technology Investor 6/20/08

My friend Siobahn Gorman over at the Wall Street Journal covered the new National Intelligence Assessment on Global Climate Change today. Here's the article.

In summarizing the NIA for Congress, Tom Fingar, the head of the National Intelligence Council who spoke here at New America a few weeks ago, said global climate change is a very real national security challenge. Here's his summary graf:

We judge global climate change will have wide-ranging implications for US national security interests over the next 20 years. Although the United States will be less affected and is better equipped than most nations to deal with climate change, and may even see a benefit owing to increases in agriculture productivity, infrastructure repair and replacement will be costly. We judge that the most significant impact for the United States will be indirect and result from climate-driven effects on many other countries and their potential to seriously affect US national security interests.

All in all, I think the statement by Fingar is solid first look at the issue by an Intelligence Community that is trying hard to get a handle on a powerful geopolitical force that requires untraditional collection and analysis.

I walked into a pet groomer the other day and asked if they carried Advantage (preventive flea ointment for dogs and cats).  The response was that this was a natural pet groomer and Advantage contains strong chemicals that could harm my pet.  I felt guilty.  How could I have not thought of this?  I am an environmentalist, and my three rescued, formerly-feral cats are my pride and joy!  I already have plans for using Born Free baby bottles for when that day comes (Bisphenol-A free baby bottles), and I have bought Sigg water bottles for my family, but how could I miss this?

In a day and age where even our pets are demanding environmentally friendly, natural products, it shocks me that our federal government is still lagging on environmental legislation.  With the Warner-Lieberman climate bill (S2191) getting rejected two weeks ago, it sounds as though no matter how hard we personally try, we are doomed.

But wait, there is hope!  In fact, I always believe in a happy ending.  (Call me young, call me naïve, call me just plain annoying, but I choose to keep my hope for my own personal sanity.)  This time I'm not even being naïve.  Three major things in the environmental world that EVERYONE needs to know:

1. Our United States are saving the world

Senate debate this week on addressing climate change is raising concerns about further raising the cost of gasoline (see NY Times article and Senate Environment and Public Works Committee website for debate info).  While higher prices are hard to sell to the public, it sounds like we're missing the point.  If we want to address climate change, we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The most significant greenhouse gas is carbon (CO2) from burning fossil fuels such as oil. Economics would say to reduce demand of something, raise its price.

This last year, I took a large step forward and bought my first house. Very exciting, and I love it! But wow, what a difference a mortgage payment is from rent. One of the crazy things about buying a house is all of the "knocks on your door" that you get -- unfortunately, not from neighbors welcoming me to the neighborhood with freshly baked cherry pies (but that's what happens in the movies!), but people wanting more of my money. For some reason, there is a misconception that after you buy a house, you have lots of extra money to spend. Some of these people who described their products sounded like major scam artists, but there was one product that I found interesting and agreed to let the seller come back and give me a demonstration.

This man told me that he was going to assess the insulation of my house, and let me know what upgrades I qualify for to be paid by The Gas Company. Yes, this sounded great, but too good to be true?

The question in the headline was the theme of a conference I attended last month that suggested strongly that no they should not. The conference hosted by the New Economics Foundation, a UK-based "think and do tank" provided statistics, charts and graphs to show us explicitly that indeed happiness is not necessarily linked with material wealth and increased consumption. We all nodded and agreed -- yes we certainly understood that of course a good life does not have to cost the earth. I mean, who wouldn't prefer a meal cooked from a home garden to a meal cooked at a five-star steak house? And then the challenge was put to us -- so how do you convince everyone else of this so as to lower our collective footprint and begin to heal the earth?

Many discussions were had with some of the best thinkers on the topics of economics, sustainability, and climate change among other areas of expertise to contemplate this basic yet in some ways complex question. And all the while I kept struggling with this question.  One that I often struggle with: Why should people care? Why should people care about the earth? And more pointedly, because of the work I do, why should people care about climate change? After all, climate change is this somewhat amorphous concept -- I'm not experiencing anything profoundly life-threatening because of climate change.  (Or at least that's what it feels like. . .)

If you Google "nuclear power + global warming" you will quickly see that nuclear, by some accounts, is the "quick fix" in the fight against global warming. In America, we are always looking for the "quick fix" and in this case many are looking towards nuclear as the miracle drug to our addiction to our overly consumptive lives. When faced with a choice to pop a pill or run the extra mile to lose that extra pound, many of us would choose the pill.

But like any quick fix, this one has side effects. Whether it's the pill that guarantees stronger bones or a mor- active sex life, we are all familiar with the "vomiting, irregular heartbeat and in some cases death may occur" tagline. In the case of nuclear power we have the same scenario. In the same breath that many tout nuclear as the zero-emission answer to our energy troubles, they quickly gloss over or fail to mention the glaring and, yes, potentially deadly side effects.

Side effect #1: Waste. A large nuclear reactor produces 3 cubic meters (25-30 tons) of spent fuel each year, 3% of which is made of fission products. Spent nuclear fuel needs 10,000 years of radioactive decay in order to no longer pose a threat to public health and safety. The U.S. and other countries have yet to implement final disposition of spent fuel or high level radioactive waste streams created at various stages of the nuclear fuel cycle.

Climate change will emerge as one of America's most difficult--and transforming--strategic issues, regardless of who swears to protect and defend the Constitution next January. For presidential candidate John McCain, that reality and his record championing the environment are running into his courting of conservatives. Terry Tamminen, head of New America Foundation's Climate Policy Program, says that McCain's attempts to paint cap-and-trade as the conservative approach to climate change may leave no one satisfied, in the latest issue of The New Republic.