environment Politics: innovation solar power sustainability
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Year 2, Month 12, Day 29: Government Should Be The Tool Of The People…
The South Bend Tribune (IN) runs a teaser on a group at Notre Dame who’ve done something awesome:
SOUTH BEND -A team of University of Notre Dame scientists say they’ve developed a “solar paint” that can inexpensively harness the sun’s power.
The team says its “Sun-Believable” paint moves the silicon-based solar power industry into new territory by using nanoparticles that act as semiconductors to turn sunlight into power. Their findings appear in the journal ACS Nano.
The Notre Dame team led by biochemistry professor Prashant Kamat created its paint from tiny particles of titanium dioxide coated with one of two cadmium-based substances. That’s mixed with a water-alcohol mixture to create a paste. When the paste is brushed onto a transparent conducting material and exposed to light, it creates electricity.
It’s nice to read good news. The interesting question was how to turn such a bare piece into a possibly publishable letter. Sent December 25:
The Notre Dame team’s newly announced solar paint is important not only as a fresh initiative in the ongoing struggle against the looming catastrophe of global climate change, but as a reminder of what a reality-based government could be doing with our tax dollars.
In an energy economy based on fossil fuels, our taxes fund substantial corporate subsidies for oil and coal, not to mention some very expensive wars. Furthermore, we’ve got to clean up the messes left by our century-long carbon binge, and address the health impacts of an awful lot of pollution. That’ll cost us.
In an energy economy based on renewable sources, by contrast, contributions to our government would fund projects like Professor Prashant Kamat’s paint — and we wouldn’t have to pay the price in blood and treasure to protect our sources of supply.
I know what I’d rather buy with my tax dollars. Do you?
Warren Senders
environment: Durban Conference energy policy Rajendra Pachauri sustainability
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Year 2, Month 12, Day 5: Variations On A Theme
The Albany Times-Union runs the same AP article on Pachauri’s remarks (see yesterday’s letter for a blockquote). So I took yesterday’s piece, filed off all the serial numbers, and passed it along.
Sent November 30 (now I’m five days ahead of the curve!):
Seeking to justify inaction on climate change, self-styled fiscal conservatives are fond of invoking the specter of expense. But as Rajendra Pachauri makes clear, the economic impacts of a runaway greenhouse effect will be far more exorbitant than any costs associated with shifting to an energy economy based on the principles of sustainability.
Genuine financial responsibility implies living within one’s means, and it’s time for the world’s biggest burners of fossil fuels to recognize the hidden costs of the energy they’ve long regarded as inexpensive. Climate chaos’ impacts on infrastructure, public health, and agriculture (to name just three vulnerable sectors of the economy) will be devastating in ways that neither business or government have anticipated — and once we include all these factors in our calculations, coal and oil stand revealed as exorbitantly costly.
Our species cannot afford any more “cheap energy” if we are to survive the coming centuries.
Warren Senders
environment: corporate responsibility Durban Conference economics Rajendra Pachauri sustainability
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Year 2, Month 12, Day 4: Just Wait For The Balance-Transfer Offers!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution runs an AP article on Rajendra Pachauri’s words about how expensive climate change is certain to be:
DURBAN, South Africa — The U.N.’s top climate scientist cautioned climate negotiators Wednesday that global warming is leading to human dangers and soaring financial costs, but containing carbon emissions will have a host of benefits.
Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, summarized a litany of potential disasters at a U.N. climate conference in the South African city of Durban. Although he gave no explicit deadlines, the implication was that time is running out for greenhouse gas emissions to level off and begin to decline.
If we won’t change our ways to save the planet’s biosphere, maybe we’ll do it to save money. Sent November 30:
Time is running out for the spurious fiscal arguments that have been deployed over and over again to justify inaction on climate change. As extreme weather becomes the norm, there will be huge impacts in every area of the economy. Public health, infrastructure, agriculture, transportation — all will be profoundly affected in ways neither public or private sectors have anticipated.
Such climate-related expenses are direct consequences of our century-long binge of fossil-fuel consumption. But now, the hidden costs of our energy economy are becoming obvious; oil and coal are suddenly very expensive once these factors have been included.
Financial responsibility now requires two things. First, paying off our debt to the environment; we’ve exceeded our credit limit and are now incurring significant penalties. And second, we must build an energy economy that ensures that all citizens of Earth live within their ecological means. Sustainability and fiscal responsibility must be synonymous.
Warren Senders
environment: coffee corporate irresponsibility sustainability
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Year 2, Month 10, Day 21: Brrrrrr.
I’ve been seeing this come up in Google recently, but it was only on October 17 that I decided to write a letter about Starbucks’ concerns about the world’s coffee crop, which were described in the October 16 issue of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:
There’s a global crisis of unimaginable import and the powers that be aren’t doing anything about it, despite Seattleites’ strident efforts to raise awareness.
No, it’s not “Occupy Seattle.” We’re talking about a threat to the world’s coffee supply; and Starbucks executives, not underemployed young people, are ringing the alarm.
Jim Hanna, the Seattle coffee empire’s sustainability director, told The Guardian that climate change is already spurring severe hurricanes and more resistant bugs that are reducing crop yields.
I could imagine a future without oil more easily than one without coffee. Sent October 17:
For American coffee drinkers, the news that climate change may drastically impact future crops around the world should be a sobering revelation. Of course, it isn’t just the bitter brown berry that’ll get clobbered by the consequences of a runaway greenhouse effect, but virtually every aspect of planetary agriculture.
But it is also worth noticing that Starbucks actually has a “Sustainability Director” — an official whose responsibilities presumably involve looking farther into the future than the next quarterly report. This is something which other corporations should emulate.
How different would our planetary energy economy be if the big oil companies’ priorities were built around more than short-term profitability? How different would our planetary environment be if they respected (and acted upon) climatologists’ reports instead of lavishing funding on anti-science politicians?
It’s time for the fossil fuel industries to wake up — and smell the coffee.
Warren Senders
environment: 350 capitalism economics sustainability
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Year 2, Month 9, Day 30: “The Ideology Of The Cancer Cell”
The Iowa City Press-Citizen discusses “Moving Planet,” in the wake of Saturday’s planet-wide action:
The event was held in conjunction with the nearly 2,000 other Moving Planet rallies around the world over the weekend, including eight in Iowa, sponsored by the global environmental organization 350.org.
Carsner urged rally goers to call upon local business to invest in renewable energy, and demand that their elected officials initiate better energy standards and make it more conducive for homeowners and small businesses to generate clean energy through wind and solar power.
“We think there is plenty we can do on a local level,” said Carsner, the head of the Iowa City Sierra Club group. “… We think it’s important to take action, it’s important to gain information and it’s important to be part of a movement.”
I’m continuing with the “let’s reform capitalism” theme. Heh heh heh. Sent September 26:
The people all over the globe who joined Saturday’s “Moving Planet” action are giving voice to the most urgent need of our times. It’s not just that we must address climate change — the greenhouse effect is a symptom of a deeper problem that we have barely begun to think about.
Our economic thinking is based on the idea that continuous growth is both possible and desirable. It is neither. When almost seven billion humans spend environmental capital far faster than it can be replenished, it is time to change our ways.
If humanity is to survive and prosper in the coming centuries, we need to stop consuming the Earth’s resources and start renewing them — which can only happen when our economic models are based on sustainability, not growth. This is the ultimate message of “Moving Planet,” and it’s one the world needs to hear — now, more than ever.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: 350 Bill McKibben sustainability
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Year 2, Month 9, Day 27: Wheels On Fire, Rollin’ Down The Road
The September 23 edition of the Milford, MA Daily News runs a sympathetic article on the upcoming “Moving Planet” events, leading with these nicely crafted paragraphs:
Many scientists and climate experts understand that 350 ppm (parts per million) of carbon carbon dioxide (CO2) is the amount considered to be the safe upper limit of the gas in the earth’s atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere allowing humans to live on earth, but at higher levels leads to global warming.
The bad news is that the earth’s atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide are currently at 392 ppm and are increasing by 2 ppm every year. If this trend continues, a tipping point could be reached and irreversible damage done to the planet. The good news is that the planet is still at a point where if changes are made now to significantly reduce the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse emissions, the planet could slowly cycle some of the extra carbon in the atmosphere and get back to 350 ppm. That is the goal of 350.org.
Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org (www.350.org) and author of several books on climate change, says we cannot remain on the wrong side of 350. He organized 350.org as a global movement to bring attention to this vexing worldwide problem. This year, 350.org linked up with Moving Planet to organize Saturday’s global day of action, a movement created to continue beyond this date of unity.
It seemed to be worth it to try for a philosophically robust analysis in the space of 150 words, sent Sept. 23:
The rationale for the “Moving Planet” action rests in the fact that the biggest culprit in the global warming emergency is not a single individual, or even a single organization. Rather, the steadily increasing concentration of greenhouse gases is brought about by the industrialized civilization within which we all live.
“Top-down” political and regulatory solutions are essential to a viable resolution of the climate crisis, but they are insufficient without a widespread change in our ways of living. While our complex, vibrant informational culture has made worldwide interconnectedness a possibility, it consumes environmental resources far faster than they can be renewed.
We must transform our economy away from consumption and towards replenishment — without losing the planetary sensibility that made modern environmentalism possible. To succeed, this transformation must be both global and local, immediate and long-term — which is why Bill McKibben’s vision is so relevant and inspiring. Let’s ride.
Warren Senders
environment: forests sustainability
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Year 2, Month 7, Day 31: The Word for World
The July 15 Chicago Tribune reports on a new study that includes a teensy-weensy bit of good news about the ability of forests to absorb CO2:
SINGAPORE (Reuters) – The world’s forests can play an even greater role in fighting climate change than previously thought, scientists say in the most comprehensive study yet on how much carbon dioxide forests absorb from the air.
The study may also boost a U.N.-backed program that aims to create a global market in carbon credits from projects that protect tropical forests. If these forests are locking away more carbon than thought, such projects could become more valuable.
(snip)
The researchers found that in total, established forests and young regrowth forests in the tropics soaked up nearly 15 billion tonnes of CO2, or roughly half the emissions from industry, transport and other sources.
But the scientists calculated that deforestation emissions totaled 10.7 billion tonnes, underscoring that the more forests are preserved the more they can slow the pace of climate change.
A major surprise was the finding that young regrowth forests in the tropics were far better at soaking up carbon than thought, absorbing nearly 6 billion tonnes of CO2 — about the annual greenhouse gas emissions of the United States.
Maybe we should stop cutting down forests in order to make stuff to throw away? Just a thought. Sent July 15:
The societies that bear the brunt of tropical deforestation reap no benefits from their sacrifice; now it is apparent that the future of the planet as a whole may hinge on these woodlands’ continued good health. Sadly, in a non-localized global economy, those who profit from exploiting a commodity are hardly ever the ones to whom it originally belonged, and there is little motivation for careful long-term forest planning when a quick buck can be turned. How much paper do we throw away every day? How many lives, communities and ecosystems are grievously disrupted satisfying the developed West’s urgent need for disposable packaging? Our grandchildren deserve to inherit a green and bountiful world; the discovery that young-growth forests are hyperefficient absorbers of atmospheric CO2 underscores the importance of sustainable forestry everywhere on earth. Let’s take care of our forests — so that they may continue to take care of us.
Warren Senders
environment: capitalism greed predatory capitalism sustainability
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Year 2, Month 7, Day 10: Go Directly To Jail. Do Not Pass Go. That’ll Be Two Hundred Dollars.
Matthew Kahn, a “guest blogger” at the Christian Science Monitor, embodies much that is deplorable in our culture in these paragraphs in a June 24 article titled “Is There A ‘We’ In Climate Change? Or just an ‘I’? “:
How will individuals, as moms and dads, as consumers, choose to live our lives given the world we have unintentionally created by producing so much GHG emissions? Vice President Gore embraces a “collective” solution that “we” must band together.
A more realistic vision is that people will differ with respect to their ability and willingness to “perceive important and complex realities”. Those who do have these skills will be more likely to thrive in the tough days ahead and they are likely to make $ as entrepreneurs as they anticipate the others’ future suffering.
Well, by Bald-headed Christ, that sounds pretty un-Christian to me. Unless you’re talking about the modern Corporate Jeebus, in which case it’s entirely consistent with what I’ve observed.
Sent June 24:
Matthew Kahn’s response to Al Gore is built around an erroneous framing. Rejecting the former VP’s suggestion that the struggle against global warming requires collective action, Mr. Kahn offers the reassuring thought that people with better survival skills and adaptive capability are “more likely to thrive in the tough days ahead,” and furthermore, can make substantial profits from the suffering of others! Apparently the preservation of thousands of years’ worth of culture is an inadequate motivator; to persuade people to take climate change seriously, they need to know there’s money to be made and suckers to be fleeced!
Effective responses to climate change must be both individual and collective, and greed shouldn’t be part of the recipe. Remember the filling station owner who tripled his prices after 9/11? There’s an example of individual entrepreneurship for you; such attempts to exploit others’ misfortune exemplify the worst aspects of our shared humanity.
Warren Senders
environment: economics MA Department of Environmental Protection real-estate sustainability
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Year 2, Month 6, Day 5: We Need This Land For Future Exploitation!
Something a little different today. The Fall River Herald News (MA) runs a guest editorial from a couple of real-estate guys, extolling the importance of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection — from an economic POV. Good stuff, especially for those people who aren’t persuaded by anything other than the slavering jaws of naked capitalism:
It’s not every day the real estate community and the environmental community share common ground.
Increasingly, however, we understand a healthy economy and a healthy environment are mutually beneficial. We also understand the commonwealth, like every other state, faces a fiscal crisis that must be met with painful budget cuts and a disciplined focus on economic development. But we must avoid cuts which undermine the very economic growth and job creation essential to our recovery.
The commonwealth’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is more than a protector of the environment.
The “climate change news” for today (5/24) is all Australia, all the time. I haven’t gotten into an Aussie newspaper yet (though I did make New Zealand once), so I did a search for something closer to home. Sent May 24:
The “conflicting interests” of the real estate and environmental communities vanish when things are viewed from the proper perspective. It is only in the past century that people began purchasing land in order to make a quick profit; the notion of real estate as a short-term, high-yield investment is a relatively novel one. It’s also an idea with profoundly damaging consequences for the long-term health of entire regions, for if the land’s owners never know the land as our forbears once did, nothing can prevent grotesquely destructive exploitation. Nothing, that is, except local regulations and the Department of Environmental Protection. Needless to say, both of these are under attack from budget-cutting proponents, which makes the authors’ cogent defense of the DEP’s core mission very welcome. The interests of real-estate investors and environmentalists necessarily coincide; both groups have an interest in keeping the land alive and beautiful for centuries to come.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Ban ki-Moon Cancun copenhagen green economics sustainability
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Year 2, Month 2, Day 1: Stupidity Rhymes With Cupidity
Ban Ki-moon is going to change his focus to “green economics” in the wake of repeated failures to get the world’s biggest contributors to the greenhouse effect to behave responsibly toward their neighbors.
The Guardian (UK):
Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general who made global warming his personal mission, is ending his hands-on involvement with international climate change negotiations, the Guardian has learned.
In a strategic shift, Ban will redirect his efforts from trying to encourage movement in the international climate change negotiations to a broader agenda of promoting clean energy and sustainable development, senior UN officials said.
The officials said the change in focus reflected Ban’s realisation, after his deep involvement with the failed Copenhagen summit in 2009, that world leaders are not prepared to come together in a sweeping agreement on global warming – at least not for the next few years.
My letter to the Guardian:
One can only imagine Ban Ki-moon’s deep disappointment at the failure of the world’s nations to make any meaningful progress on combating climate change over the past several years. The climatological evidence for anthropogenic global warming has accumulated at dizzying rates; scientific consensus on the threat humanity confronts is essentially universal, if you subtract a few petroleum-funded naysayers from the mix. And yet some of the world’s largest countries seem politically paralyzed, unable to do anything in the face of this slow-motion disaster (although there is ample indication that its pace is quickening faster than most experts ever imagined possible).
Perhaps the new focus on “green growth” will succeed where a plea for human survival has failed; perhaps an appeal to our economic motivations will motivate our leaders to do the right thing, albeit for the wrong reasons. And our descendants, if descendants there be, will remember that our generation knew — but chose to ignore.
Warren Senders