Save and Conserve

It's official. China is now pumping more CO2 into the air than we in the US are.

This is an enormous problem. Even if the people & government of the US got religion on global warming & started to cap and/or reduce carbon emissions, it wouldn't matter. China is now the 500 pound guerilla pounding the Earth like it's an American Tourister suitcase.

And we can't really ask China to stop, either:

The world's carbon dioxide emissions increased 3% in 2007, and China was responsible for fully two thirds of that increase, according to the report. It now emits 14% more than the United States every year, and that figure is expected to grow as the country continues to burn coal, clear forests and make cement to fuel its own economic boom, while manufacturing the world's disposable goods.

The more you learn about the climate crisis, the more you realize it's more about economic growth & population than anything else. You can't expect to radically reduce the CO2 emissions if you still want people to drive, to be mobile, to eat, to go to school, to live. Plus, it becomes even harder if the number of those people who want to do those things keeps increasing. It's like trying to plug the ever-lengthening cracks in a failing dam.

The scale of the problem exceeds any one country's ability to cope effectively with it. This is a global shitstorm ... one without any simple or quick fix that has been made much more difficult to deal with now that Chinese economic growth has "gone plaid".

Posted by tom c. at 5:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

#27,743: The Chinese really like to buy cars ... the bigger, the better.

#27,744: The amount of methane (a much more dangerous greenhouse gas than CO2) in the atmosphere increased 0.5% in 2007 after a decade of little to no change.

Is it me or is the troubling news coming harder & faster these days?

Posted by tom c. at 9:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Al Gore recently presented a new slide show (updated since An Inconvenient Truth) at the TED conference.

As a quick sidebar, Barack Obama has come out & said that he would make a new cabinet position in an Obama administration in order to deal with the climate change problem. He wants Gore to assume that role. I think that is a good move for all concerned parties: Obama, Gore, US citizens & world citizens.

Gore continues to lead the way on climate change. These updated slides that he recently presented are really interesting. I would encourage anyone out there to take 30 minutes to watch this video of his presentaiton, but if you are looking for a quick synopsis, I have some bullets listed below that capture bits of Gore's message:

• We must become engaged & active citizens within our democracy
• Environmental challenges fall into 3 categories: local (water), regional (acid rain), global (climate change)
• Arctic sea ice cap vanishing ... in fall 2007 there was a record low level of ice extent
• Massive melting in Greenland & Antarctica too
• Compares Earth to Venus which is super hot because of carbon in the atmosphere (Mercury is cooler than Venus, even though it is closer to the sun). The sun is not to blame for our warming temps ... the stratosphere of Earth is cooling right now (which makes the point)
• 956 questions to Pres candidates on NBC, 2 about climate (and all the other networks were the same)
• There is a lack of urgency around this issue
• Shows gasoline consumption in developing countries & CO2 emissions (even without USA in the picture, there would be crisis)
• Shows deforestation in Bolivia over 20 years
• Shows fisherie's decline in recent years (mentions "peak fishing")
• The solution is a tax on CO2 (to replace employment tax)
• Shows concentrating solar in Africa ("super-grid") & need to turn to renewable energy
• Investment in tar sands & shale are akin to a junky using veins in the feet after the arm veins have collapsed
• The US still has not ratified Kyoto Protocol
• Talks about Lake Lanier drought & how drought in Australia made the people realize the need to sign Kyoto
• We need to find a way to convey a sense of "generational mission"
• We have the means to solve this challenge, but we haven't tapped into the energy to make it happen
• He remains optimistic & thinks this challenge is a blessing to our generation, who will be celebrated in the future
• Asked about the candidates approaches to climate crisis, he thinks it's good that all 3 have a more progressive position than Bush, but the dialog is still not bold enough
• There should be no new coal-fired power plants without carbon sequestration
• Asked about what he himself wants to do next, he said he is grappling with the question
• There is an old African proverb: if you want to go fast, go alone ... if you want to go far, go together
• We need to go far & go fast

It would be an incredibly positive development for the environmental movement if Obama wins & makes Gore the figurehead for motivating the people & attacking climate change. There is a poignant moment at the end of the video when the host says how much it hurts to think that Gore lost to Bush in 2000 because of poorly designed ballots. As Gore responds, "You have no idea ..."

I think it is interesting to note that Gore seems much more emotional during this presentation. It's as though he has become aware that the facts he presented in the movie are not enough to wake people up. They need some stronger coffee ... they need to be shaken out of the funk somehow, some way. I don't think he knows exactly how ... but perhaps as climate czar he could figure it out. Let's hope!

Posted by tom c. at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Given that much of the current Democratic Presidential Primary season has been defined by questions & posturing about experience (35 years from HRC or lack thereof in the case of Obama), I thought it would be useful to see how important experience is in the Arctic circle.

I was shocked to see that up in the Arctic they have learned that experience is no longer an important factor in sea ice makeup.

The image above, compliments of NASA, clearly shows that young beats old.

I think we can learn a lot from the ice in the Arctic. I hope voters take this to heart & realize that experience is definitely overrated. Young ice, old ice ... what's the big deal?

Posted by tom c. at 1:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I just returned from a 10 day trip to Hawaii. We visited the garden island: Kauai. Kauai's weather is really fast changing. It rained quite often, but usually for only 2-3 minute bursts. Immediately after the rain stopped, the sun was usually right back out and shining bright. I went to college in Burlington, VT, where locals like to say if you don't like the weather, wait a few minutes. True, northern VT weather is pretty fleeting, but can't compare to Kauai in terms of change frequency. Plus, Kauai is so incredible beautiful that the rain bursts only add to the charm. Whereas the Burlington shift from freezing rain to ice pellets does not warm the heart nearly as much.

Anyway, I've recently read a bunch of articles on the global warming situation like this one that has nuggets like the following:

Entire hillsides, sometimes more than a kilometre long, simply let go and slid like a vast green carpet into valleys and rivers on Melville Island in Canada's northwest Arctic region of Nunavut this summer, says Scott Lamoureux of Queens University in Canada and leader of one the of International Polar Year projects.

"The entire landscape is on the move, it was very difficult to find any slopes that were unaltered," said Lamoureux, who led a scientific expedition to the remote and uninhabited island.

The topography and ecology of Melville Island is rapidly being rearranged by climate change.

"Every day it looked different," he told IPS. "This is a permanent change."

How fitting that global warming is progressing much more rapidly than scientific models have suggested. This fits hand in glove with our American culture, where we have the collective attention span of the common gnat. Thank goodness you can actually see global warming as it happens! If not, we'd probably ignore the whole issue and quickly forget about it. Phew! And to think I was worried? My guess is some enterprising game development company will have a global warming-inspired "Save the Polar Bears" type product out very soon for the kids to play at home.

Global warming, a product fit for the times.

Posted by tom c. at 5:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've long been an admirer of Patagonia. They produce top-shelf outdoor gear and have probably the sickest print catalogs in the world - visually stunning and loaded with interesting editorial content, plus all the fantastic gear-browsing. (My only knock on Patagonia is the sorry state of its website. Google-friendly, it is not!)

Yvon Chouinard (pictured at right), founder of Patagonia, is unique in the world of business because he puts environment ahead of profit and growth. An interview with Yvon is available in the July 2007 issue of Mens Journal, and some of his comments were striking. For example ...

Mens Journal: But global warming is a "hoax." Yvon: Well, I tell you, these people who say we have 10 years to turn it around - you know what? It's too late. And I see it. Oh, my God, it's unbelievable.

Mens Journal: What have you seen?
Yvon: I've been going up to British Columbia for 30 or 40 years, and all the little pocket glaciers on the coast range have receded. They have withered down to two-thirds the size of what they were. And you can see it very dramatically because you can see the lichen line. It's pretty serious. I think British Columbia's going to lose all the salmon streams as a result, because they've done everything wrong. They've clearcut all the rivers, so there's no shade. And those little pocket glaciers are really important for trickling down cold water all summer long. Now the summer water temperatures are getting up in the 70s, which is death for salmon. So probably the only places in the world that'll have salmon are Alaska and Russia. I'm not talking 50 years from now; I'm talking right now. When I go salmon fishing I look at myself as witnessing the end of a species.

Mens Journal: You've made no secret of trying to wean Patagonia off oil. Is that in response to climate change?
Yvon: Outside of global warming, the end of oil is the biggest thing that's going to happen. It's going to happen within our lifetime. We're running out of petroleum. So to my management I said, "Okay, what is going to be our response as a company?" If we avoid talking about it, then we end up like General Motors and Ford, which have had their heads in the sand for so long. And there's Toyota laughing all the way to the bank. So we've made a commitment to make, by 2010, every single piece of clothing out of recycled and recyclable fibers. If we want to do something about global warming - Sweden and Iceland said no petroleum by 2020, zero - that's what you've got to do to really have an effective response. The idea of, Oh, well, we'll all be driving hydrogen cars and blah, blah, blah, you know, electric cars - well, it takes energy to produce that hydrogen and that electricity. It takes more energy to produce ethanol than you get out of it. If it weren't subsidized to death, nobody would be making gasoline out of it. And with people starving around the world - I mean, it's stupid to be making gasoline out of food. And having put in $2 million worth of solar panels that produce only 12 percentof the electricity that we use here at the headquarters, I know for a fact that that's not a very efficient system.

Mens Journal: You've just dismissed out of hand almost every alternative to fossil fuel there is. Do you have a better option to recommend, or is it really down to reducing consumption?
Yvon: That's the main thing we have to do. If we insulated all our houses and put in triple-pane windows and stuff like that, it would save a tremendous amount of energy, and it would stall the end of oil for a while. But ultimately we're going to have to go back to a very simple lifestyle, and it's going to be the end of globalism, basically. For us as a business it's pretty scary, because we produce organic cotton in Turkey, and then we shit it to Thailand to be made into cloth, and then it's cut and sewn in Mexico, then sent to Reno, Nevada, to the warehouse, and then shipped from the warehouse to our dealers and to our shops. Man, the transportation costs of that are going to be more expensive than the product in a very short time.

Mens Journal: You've been talking about the need for business to clean up its own act for years. Is it gratifying that others finally seem ready to change?
Yvon: It's amazing how quickly it's happening now. It really is. It's out there, that we need to act, and we can't wait for government. I get calls every day asking me to talk to this group or that group. I'm going to talk to United Artists next. A friend of mine at Fox Sports told me that even Rupert Murdoch told his staff they need to have a green plan. And what's interesting is that it's not a political thing; it's for different reasons. Some companies see that there's money to be made, but a lot of companies are realizing that global warming is deadly serious for the future - that there's money to be lost. Business people get that we can't wait for the government; it'll be too late. Even the states see that. So these companies, a lot of them have no idea where to start, so they look at us having been there, having taken the risk. But what we've always wanted to show is that it's not a risk to protect the environment. The risk is when you don't.

Posted by tom c. at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about personal carbon footprints. In my own case, my footprint is probably below average ... I rarely fly, I commute 12 miles one way in a Honda Accord, and I make an effort to use public transportation when possible. I also like to cycle and think walkable communities make great sense for both reduction of energy consumption and improvement of personal health.

When that news came out about Gore's electric bill a few months back, I was pretty pissed. I understand that an international figurehead like Al Gore is going to burn through a lot of fossil fuel as he globe trots - he is spreading the global warming message so that seems like an acceptable trade. But, at the same time, it doesn't sound like he's made a personal commitment to lowering his carbon footprint outside of his public, professional life. That rubs me the wrong way.

I recently booked honeymoon tickets for Hawaii and I actually felt a twinge of guilt because I thought about the huge amount of jet fuel those flights would consume (New York to Phoenix to Hawaii). On the other hand, my guilt strikes me as pretty unwarranted. In the grand scheme of things, my honeymoon trip isn't going to make an ounce of difference. Maybe. Or maybe not? Hard to know.

Well, after reading this Forbes article about ChIndias ever-increasing appetite for coal-fed power plants, I think I have a better sense for the answer.

Here's a few lines from that report, if you don't feel like clicking through ...

Coal consumption in China and India is forecast to increase by 3% a year between 2006 and 2030, compared with an increase of 0.6% a year for the developed countries that belong to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, according to S&P analysts.

India doesn’t believe it has contributed to excessive greenhouse gases and wants developed countries to explicitly address the issue before it does anything, the report says.

Much of its expected growth will come from the Indian government's plans to add about 100,000 megawatts to the country's existing installed capacity of about 140,000 MW to meet its goal of "power for all" by 2012. "To meet this target, the government has proposed at least seven coal-fired ‘ultra-mega power’ projects,” S&P said.

Yeah ... I don't think I really need to worry. Maybe Gore was onto something.

Posted by tom c. at 5:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Now that it's become common knowledge that the Earth's poles are melting rapidly and undergoing dramatic ecological shifts, tourism is booming (at least near the North pole).

I'm not sure how to react.

On the one hand, I'm disheartened to hear that people want ringside seats to view their own destruction. Do they see the irony in their actions: likely concerned about climate change, they proceed to take a long, unnecessary journey that increases their personal carbon footprint and contributes to the problem? Maybe while they're up North they should get real close to a melting berg and look at the reflection.

On the other hand, we're only human. And that means we're inherently curious, thoughtful types. How could we be expected to ignore radical climate change? On the x axis of Earth time, this is a pretty rare event indeed and deserving of a closer look.

Not that it matters. This type of thing is inevitable. People with money to burn will continue to travel guilt-free for the next 50 years. They'll purchase 'carbon offsets' and come home with fantastic stories and digital cameras loaded with spectacular images of the melting. I hate to point fingers at these people, but something feels wrong with this.

Posted by tom c. at 9:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The numbers are in, and we now know that the period from December 2006 through February 2007 was the warmest winter in the Earth's history.

The 3-month winter period December 2006 through February 2007 had an average temperature +0.72°C (+1.30°F) above normal, beating the previous record set in 2004 by a substantial +0.12°C. Cooler than normal temperatures were observed over less than 15% of the globe, and nowhere did the cooling exceed 3° C (Figure 1). Record warmth was particularly noteworthy over land areas of the Northern Hemisphere poleward of 45° latitude, where temperatures a remarkable 5°C (9°F) above normal were common.

Read the whole post over at Wunder Blog.

Posted by tom c. at 1:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

But it was most definitely not a cold January for the Earth. In fact,

Spurred on by unusually warm Siberia, Canada, northern Asia and Europe, the world's land areas were 3.4 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than a normal January, according to the U.S. National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. That didn't just nudge past the old record set in 2002, but broke that mark by 0.81 degrees, which meteorologists said is a lot, since such records often are broken by hundredths of a degree at a time.

3.4 degrees warmer than normal. That is like winning a World Cup downhill by 5 seconds or winning a major golf tournament by 25 strokes. Just doesn't happen.

The temperature of the world's land and water combined - the most effective measurement - was 1.53 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than normal, breaking the old record by more than one-quarter of a degree. Ocean temperatures alone didn't set a record.

I'm sure the global warming deniers will latch onto the last sentence above with pitbull-like fervor, but their ability to obfuscate on this issue is quickly waning. Listen, global warming deniers, the planet is heating up. Get used to it. I think Fareed Zakaria has it right when he says,

As we debate the meta-theories about global warming, we're increasingly unprepared to deal with its consequences. Whether or not CO2 emissions are triggering certain reactions in the atmosphere, we can see that sea levels are rising. What are we going to do about it?

Posted by tom c. at 8:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sarah Silverman discusses the upside to global comforting ...

Posted by tom c. at 9:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I'm currently reading the novel Pompeii about the eruption in 79AD of Mount Vesuvius. As everyone knows, this famous eruption was catastrophic; life and society in Pompeii completely ended on one August day.

What is striking about the tale is how people ignored warning signs. Pompeii had experienced a major earthquake about a dozen years before the eruption. Tremors and minor shocks were very common in the years between the big earthquake and the eruption, leading to complacency. Tremors in the days immediately prior to the eruption, however, were much more significant because the magma was pushing the earth's crust as it rose and pressure built.

The writing was on the fresco, so to speak. And yet no viable action was taken to deal with the lurking crisis. Can you imagine walking around Pompeii and feeling a massive shock - a tremor more powerful than any other you had felt before - and just putting it out of mind? Wouldn't you be curious about that tremor and wondering what caused it to be so powerful?

Are we living in the modern day Pompeii? Evidence of global warming surrounds us. And yet we pour more CO2 into the air every year.

Global production of oil is in a 2 year plateau even though prices have been at historical highs (which should encourage producers to increase production). US oil production has been in decline since the early 70s and we have become increasingly dependent upon foreign sources of black gold. And yet we hear about how the US needs to become energy independent from the politicians.

How can we move away from oil when we don't subsidize alternative sources of energy, Mr. Politician? This new Congress needs to come up to speed NOW about these critical issues. I'm encouraged when I read that the Senate is getting good information, but that is not enough. It's not enough to hear:

After closing the hearing, Senator Bingaman was surrounded by reporters. Did he think that Congress was now ready to raise fuel efficiency standards? Bingaman said he did not know, and walked away.

Choosing not to act will be akin to pretending everything was normal in Pompeii the night before the eruption. History teaches us how that choice turned out.

Posted by tom c. at 3:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

In June of 2006, my GF and I caught An Inconvenient Truth in the theater and walked away very moved and impressed by the film's message of warning and wake-up. While Christmas shopping in late December, I spied the DVD copy of An Inconvenient Truth and ended up throwing it in the cart (I rarely buy DVDs, preferring to rent). The DVD contains an update from Gore on the global warming situation in the year since the film was completed.

To sum, in the year since the movie wrapped, more evidence of rising global temperatures has come to light, as have additional studies linking weather events to global warming. In the 30 minute update, which is well worth anyone's time, Gore touches on the following:

Hurricanes
Also known as cyclones (Australia) and typhoons (Asia), studies have been released linking the growing intensity of hurricanes to rising sea surface temperatures. Although the 2006 hurricane season in the Atlantic was a big zero, Australia had a very active season and China had Saomai - the strongest "super typhoon" it has seen in the past 50 years. The takeaway: expect to see more highly amped hurricanes in the near future.

Global Temperatures
The 12 month period from July 2005 to June 2006 was the warmest period in US history. In July, 2006, South Dakota hit 120 degrees. In July, 2005, the temperature reached a mind-boggling 125.6 degrees in Pakistan - which may or may not be an all-time record. Honey, cancel the Pakistan trip next summer, will ya?

Ocean Acidification
An enormous amount of CO2 is dumped into the atmosphere each day - Gore tells us it is 70 million tons per day. Of that, 25 million tons per day is absorbed by the ocean. All of that CO2 reduces the pH level of the ocean and makes it more acidic. More acidic water makes it difficult for organisms like coral and shell fish to calcify. You may have seen alarming reports about bleached-out coral reefs, which are considered to be the rain forests of the ocean. Ocean acidification is caused by CO2 emissions and it has the potential to negatively impact the entire ocean food chain. Nice.

Glacial Earthquakes
Greenland has the second most ice on the planet, after Antarctica. For now. Ice melt on Greenland is accelerating; last year Greenland lost about 50 cubic miles of ice to melt. As the ice has begun to melt faster, the incidence of glacial earthquakes has picked up. From 1993 to 1999, the number of glacial quakes exceeding 4.5 on the Richter scale increased from 7 to 15. From 1999 to 2005, the number increased from 15 to 32. This is evidence of destabilized ice and, as Gore says, is another clear warning sign that global warming is real.

Major Wildfires
A study was released that linked warming temperatures with more frequent and more intense fires in the western US. Higher temps, incidentally, also dry out the Earth's soil (soil moisture evaporation), creating a breeding ground for lightning induced wildfires. Unfortunately, more wildfires means more CO2 released into the Earth's atmosphere. This appears to be one of those positive feedback loops.

Permafrost
Frozen in soil in places like Siberia and Alaska is a lot of CO2 and methane. The permafrost in Siberia, for example, contains something like 70 billion metric tons of methane. For those of you who haven't made the jump to the metric system that is 1.54323584 × 10^14 pounds. Lot of LBs there. A Russian scientist has bad news: a Siberian peat bog the size of Germany and France has begun to thaw. Not good.

All in all, a sobering update from the former VP Gore.

Update: Calendar year 2006 was the warmest year on record in US history.

Posted by tom c. at 8:02 AM | Permalink

My father used to work for the Mt. Mansfield Company ... also known as Stowe. Stowe is owned by the massive insurance company AIG, which essentially writes off the operations there as an annual loss. If I recall correctly, Stowe did not turn a profit during my father's tenure there, which would have been about 1990 - 1996. The northeastern US ski industry has been in contraction for the past 25 years. The number of ski areas in America has plummeted since the 1960s and the industry has had a lot of trouble attracting new participants. The high cost of equipment and daily ticket rates are likely culprits. If snowboarding had not come along when it did, the industry would likely be in much worse shape than it is.

Then again, the industry is not in good shape - especially this year with lack of snow and very warm temperatures.

Were I the owner of an eastern US ski area, I probably would have sold out of the business already. I think the future looks very grim for low elevation eastern ski resorts given the temperature rises we are now experiencing due to greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Not only will there be less natural snow, but costs will rise as these areas have to make snow any chance they get. Making artificial snow is very energy intensive and very costly. I love to ski and ride, but the business model doesn't make any sense in the global warming world. Plus, the customer experience at these resorts will be less than ideal, meaning it will be that much more difficult to attract new and repeat business.

Any industry that relies on snow or consistently cold temperatures for the bulk of its revenue is obviously treading on thin ice in 2007 and years beyond. This season may be the final nail in the coffin for several more American ski areas. I wonder what other industries will be negatively impacted by global warming. I wonder what will happen to states like Vermont, where tourism drives the local economy.

Posted by tom c. at 9:28 AM | Permalink

disclaimer: i like al gore. i'm a big fan. sure, he occasionally lets fly outrageous comments like "i invented the internet" that make you cringe. but overall, you have to like this man's dedication, smarts and general righteousness. served in the armed forces. served in the senate. championed pro-environment positions. served 8 years as clinton's vice. ran for president twice. you think any of that is easy? please! this is someone who has lots of people on his side helping him out. he's got influence. he's got respect. this is a major american figure ... someone to look up to.

gore might get on people's nerves, but you have to hand it to the guy. he gets it. he wrote earth in the balance way back in 1992. he gets that communication underlies movements and focuses change. that's why after the 2000 debacle he eventually turned to interactive media. he started current tv, a rather unique tv channel. he began giving his slide show presentation (which doesn't do it justice, really) about the precarious state of the earth's climate around the world.

now, of course, he's gone out and made a documentary about global warming. i saw this movie last friday and i thought it was well done. i'm totally on board with the message of the movie, so i was happy to see that the scientific world rubber-stamped the science and figures gore speaks to in the movie.

i won't get into an extended review or commentary on an inconvenient truth, other than to say it is a very important lesson everyone needs to sit through. i'm convinced we're in a climate crisis and the movie substantiates that view with tons of evidence and fact. enough said.

what really inspires me about gore is how he is reaching out, using a variety of media driven channels to spread his message. the guy gets it. i just hope people in america get his message!

Posted by tom c. at 8:53 PM | Permalink