Sewage 101

In St. Louis, locals have dubbed the nutrient-polluted River des Pere the River Despair. Across the state in Kansas City, Brush Creek has earned the moniker Flush Creek, for the raw and partially treated sewage that regularly flows into it. "You can fish for ‘brown trout’ in either of these waterways after any significant rainstorm," says Scott Dye, director of the Sierra Club's Water Sentinels Program.

Dealing responsibly with sewage is a huge factor in maintaining safe and healthy communities. Every year, millions of Americans get sick from contact with inadequately treated sewage that ends up in water that they swim in or drink. Many of us think of water pollution in this country as primarily substances like mercury or PCBs. In fact, the most common threat to the health of waters across the United States is nutrient pollution, from a variety of sources, including animal waste—particularly from factory farms—fertilizers, human sewage, and stormwater runoff.

Plants and animals need nutrients to survive, of course, but putting too many nutrients—especially nitrogen and phosphorus—into our waterways can make them dangerous and unhealthy. All U.S. coastal waters currently show signs of nutrient over-enrichment, and more than 60 percent of coastal rivers and bays in every coastal state in the Lower 48 are moderately-to-severely polluted by nutrients. According to the EPA, elevated levels of nitrogen and phosphorus are responsible for impairing a huge list of waterways in every state. The EPA estimates that hog, chicken, and cattle waste has polluted more than 35,000 miles of rivers in the lower 48 states.

The Planet, the Sierra Club’s activist newsletter, has just published "Sewage 101," examining the sources of nutrient pollution and detailing some of the Club’s efforts to combat sewage pollution of waterways around the country. The article also contains a downloadable infographic showing how excessive levels of nutrients can poison waterways, and tips to let you know what you can do to help combat sewage pollution.

Don't Rock the Boat

Over at RealClimate, Gavin Schmidt weighs in on the suddenly hot topic of 'geoengineering' (about which I initially commented in this post called, "Paging Dr. Strangelove"). Despite what he describes as geoengineering's dubious pedigree, Schmidt is inspired to consider it more seriously as the esteemed scientist Paul Crutzen has now 'stepped into the fray.' Crutzen, whose work on ozone depletion won him a Nobel, has written a paper (not yet published) in which he discusses purposefully adding sulphate aerosols to the stratosphere to cool the planet in much the same way that volcanic eruptions sometimes do.

For such an idea to be taken seriously, writes Schmidt (a climate modeler with NASA), some conditions must be met.

First, the idea has to actually work, second, the side effects need to be minimal, and third, it has to be able to keep up with an increasing forcing from ever higher greenhouse gas levels, and fourth, it has to be cheaper than the simply reducing emissions at source.

Schmidt considers the rough outlines of Crutzen's idea (having not yet read the paper) thusly before ultimately dismissing it. To explain why, he constructs a rather involved, but effective analogy.

Think of the climate as a small boat on a rather choppy ocean. Under normal circumstances the boat will rock to and fro, and there is a finite risk that the boat could be overturned by a rogue wave. But now one of the passengers has decided to stand up and is deliberately rocking the boat ever more violently. Someone suggests that this is likely to increase the chances of the boat capsizing. Another passenger then proposes that with his knowledge of chaotic dynamics he can counterbalance the first passenger and indeed, counter the natural rocking caused by the waves. But to do so he needs a huge array of sensors and enormous computational reasources to be ready to react efficiently but still wouldn't be able to guarantee absolute stability, and indeed, since the system is untested it might make things worse.

So is the answer to a known and increasing human influence on climate an ever more elaborate system to control the climate? Or should the person rocking the boat just sit down?

Hansen and Gore

Writing in the New York Review of Books, Jim Hansen -- yes, that Jim Hansen, NASA's leading climate expert -- appraises the threat to the planet posed by global warming, while reviewing recent books on the subject by Tim Flannery, Elizabeth Kolbert and Al Gore.

As you would expect, the review is authoritative and outspoken. The most interesting section is the one dealing with Gore, as Hansen and the former Vice President have shared history. Writes Hansen:

The reader might assume that I have long been close to Gore, since I testified before his Senate committee in 1989 and participated in scientific "roundtable" discussions in his Senate office. In fact, Gore was displeased when I declined to provide him with images of increasing drought generated by a computer model of climate change. (I didn't trust the model's estimates of precipitation.) After Clinton and Gore were elected, I declined a suggestion from the White House to write a rebuttal to a New York Times Op-Ed article that played down global warming and criticized the Vice President. I did not hear from Gore for more than a decade, until January of this year, when he asked me to critically assess his slide show. When we met, he said that he "wanted to apologize," but, without letting him explain what he was apologizing for, I said, "Your insight was better than mine."

You will recall that attempts were made by Bush-appointed handlers within NASA to muzzle Hansen. So it is interesting to note that his review carries a note at the outset stipulating that his opinions are expressed "as personal views under the protection of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution."

How to Hack a Hybrid...

...so it gets 100 miles per gallon. The Economist looks at the "motley crew of hackers, entrepreneurs and idealists that has sprung up to boost the nascent technology of plug-in hybrids."

Paging Dr. Strangelove

The latest item in the New York Times' "Energy Challenge" series (See: "How to Cool a Planet (Maybe)") introduces us to the strange world of geoengineering where outlandish-sounding schemes for dealing with global climate change are being bandied about by some of the world's leading minds -- people like Paul Crutzen (who won a Nobel for his work on ozone chemistry and also coined the word "anthropocene" to describe our current epoch) and Edward Teller (father of the hydrogen bomb and the Strategic Defense Initiative and real-life inspiration for -- wouldn't you know it? -- Dr. Strangelove).

Among the proposals being discussed: seeding the oceans with iron to promote carbon-absorbing plankton blooms; injecting sulphur particles into the stratosphere a la atmosphere-cooling volcanic eruptions; misting sea water to form sunlight-reflecting clouds; and perhaps most ambitious of all, launching trillions (yes, trillions!) of reflective lenses into orbit to help restore the Earth's energy balance.

This may all sound familiar to readers of Sierra. The July/August 2003 issue of the magazine featured an illustrated spread entitled "Creative Science" that examined, (and subtly lampooned) these ideas and more. To most of us, it would seem far more sensible and practical to engineer cars and power plants to emit less greenhouse gas than it would be to tinker with the climate system in fundamental ways that would have unpredictable consequences. The geoengineers counter that it is simply too late in the day to putter around with slow, incremental emissions reductions. As the Times' William Broad explains, geoengineering advocates hold that "humankind is already vastly altering the global environment and simply needs to do so more intelligently."

But one wonders: If we can't find the political wherewithal to negotiate an international treaty to curb greenhouse gas emissions, how do we expect to achieve the level of international cooperation (not to mention financing) it will take to make any of these sci-fi scenarios a reality? Furthermore, are we prepared to accept a future in which we humans take full responsibility for maintaining climate stability, in perpetuity?

On the other hand, it probably does make sense to explore all our options as long as we stop short (and here's the catch) of making things worse. While the geoengineers work away at their drawing boards, the world should be redoubling efforts to reduce emissions quickly using technology already at its disposal -- not counting on wild schemes to save the day. If there's anything all this geoengineering talk makes clear, it's the conviction among the best minds that we do indeed face, in Al Gore's words, "a global emergency."

The Man, the Myth, the Planet

I opened my email this morning to find this news flash from Harold Wood, Chair of our John Muir Education Committee and curator of the ever-popular John Muir Exhibit on our pages:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Minor Planet Named for Pioneer California Conservationist

(Los Angeles, CA) - The International Astronomical Union (IAU), through the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's (SAO) Minor Planet Center (MPC), has announced the naming of a newly discovered minor planet in honor of pioneer conservationist John Muir. The announcement was made in the June 2006 issue of the Minor Planet Circular, published by the SAO/MPC.

The tiny, 1-mile diameter celestial body ... was discovered in August 2004 by amateur astronomer R.E. Jones from his backyard observatory located in a Los Angeles suburb.

As the discoverer of 2004PX42, Mr. Jones was allowed to suggest a more congenial name for the planet. He chose Johnmuir, in honor of the founding president of the Sierra Club.

You have to be a pretty major dude to have a planet -- even a minor one -- named after you. Muir, who also graces the California Quarter, joins a select group of luminaries that includes Albert Einstein and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Click? Clack!

Over at CarTalk.com, Ray Magliozzi (of Tappet Bros. fame) floats a 'modest proposal' too hot for the politicos to broach; namely, a graduated gas tax of 50 cents a year, capping at $3 a gallon. I'm not sure I agree with everything he says (should we really subsidize large families?), but most of it is compelling. Take, for example, this bit:

It will lower the real price of fuel, including home heating oil, as demand starts to plummet. At the current rate of increase of fuel consumption, gasoline prices are going to approach six dollars a gallon in six years, anyway. So, instead of giving those extra three bucks to the oil companies, we can give it — are you ready for this? — back to ourselves!

Among other things, says Ray, we could pump that money into more R&D on alternative fuels and energy sources. Sounds like the right idea to me.

Groovy Green on the Sweet 16

With the Round of 16 well underway, we thought the soccer-minded among you might be interested in Groovy Green's look at how the participating countries stack up off the field in terms of environmental challenges and progress. Groovy.

Bang the Drum Loudly

Eugene Linden's piece on global warming was the cover story in last Sunday's Parade, the newspaper supplement that goes to some 30 million homes in America. The article added considerable volume to the swelling drumbeat on climate change. Finally, it seems, the uproar may drown out the industry-financed contrarians once and for all. It's high time: That the world is warming largely due to human disruption of the carbon cycle is no longer controversial and will soon cease to be newsworthy. Attention must now turn to efforts to confront our destabilized climate before it's too late.

The Parade article, fittingly, carries a lengthy sidebar on solutions (See: "25 Ways To Help Curb Climate Change"). It's gratifying to see that tip #25 -- Agitate -- points to this petition from the Sierra Club demanding that the Congressional leadership get started in crafting a sensible energy plan. There's also a link to our Cool Cities Campaign, which aims to tackle warming one city at a time. Now it's your turn to bang the drum. Take a moment to get involved. Educate yourself. Talk to your friends, family and neighbors. Demand leadership. Remember: We're all in this together.

Baby Benz?

The Smart Car is getting more and more attention after silver screen cameos in "The Da Vinci Code" and the remake of "The Pink Panther." DaimlerChrysler, which has been building the Lilliputian cars in Europe since 1998 has announced plans to start selling them, with improved emissions and safety standards, in the US in early 2008. The New York Times reports:

DaimlerChrysler plans to market the Smart to drivers in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and other congested cities. The advertising, though still in development, will emphasize fuel efficiency, safety and quality. Smart is, after all, part of the Mercedes-Benz car group.

The DaimlerChrysler executive did not disclose the car's projected gas mileage. On its Web site in Britain, a Smart coupe is listed as getting 46 miles to the gallon in the city and 69 miles to the gallon on the highway.

The Smart will compete with a new class of subcompacts including the Honda Fit, Toyota Yaris and Nissan Versa.

A Different Kind of Audit

One good thing about high energy prices: It makes energy-efficiency a much easier sell. The reason is simple: higher prices mean a shorter payback period on upgrades. So, as a homeowner, where do you start? Better insulation? Triple-glazed low-E windows? A solar water heater? According to this article in the Christian Science Montitor, "Experts recommend a targeted approach to big-ticket items in order to derive the most bang for the buck. The game plan: Diagnose the biggest inefficiencies, then invest where necessary to collect big rewards." To figure out what your house needs, start with an energy audit. Call your utility or find a contractor to analyze your home energy needs. If you can't afford a professional audit, you can tackle it yourself. For help, see the Lawrence Berkeley Lab's online energy audit here.

GM: What Went Wrong?

Today is the deadline for 113,000 General Motors employees to decide whether or not to accept a buyout offer; that is, they can either keep their jobs with a company that, last year, lost $10.6 billion and faces an uncertain future, or they can walk away with a lump sum of up to $140,000. Until last year, when Toyota overtook it, GM was the world's largest auto manufacturer. Now it's in the midst of the largest corporate buyout in history. How did it come to this?

The PBS program NOW will investigate that question tonight. The answers are no doubt complicated and include issues like soaring health care costs, high wages and supply chain problems, but they also center around really poor business decisions by GM. As one analyst tells NOW, "They've guessed wrong on the market. They've guessed wrong on fuel costs, economy and consumer reaction to that price." Another says, "You could have just watched the turmoil in the Middle East unfold over the last two decades and you could have known that someday there was going to be a breaking point." Well, yeah.

And what is GM's current strategy for dealing with high prices at the pump? They're reimbursing (some) customers on their gas bill. I guess you've gotta move the merch somehow. On a brighter note, the company has (finally) jumped into the hybrid market, focusing on putting dual drive systems in trucks, SUVs, and perhaps best of all, buses. GM says putting hybrid systems in compact cars like the Prius doesn't make good business sense. At which point I'm tempted to respond: As if they had any.

Joga Bonito!

CNN reports (via Reuters): World Cup, Al Gore go 'carbon neutral'

And it's not just Gore and FIFA. It's also the World Bank and HSBC, Europe's largest bank, and many other multinational institutions and corporations. The NFL even bought carbon offsets for the Super Bowl. Jack Groh, director of the National Football League's environment program (who knew?) tells Reuters: "If you only look at U.S. politics you miss how much the average person has a concern for these issues." Indeed.

Perhaps, like soccer, carbon trading is set to become the world's game.

Where Should Compass Be Pointing?

We've been working on our woefully inadequate links list/blogroll and we got to wondering: What environmentally oriented blogs do you read? What websites do you think we should be pointing folks to? Perhaps you have a blog yourself. Perhaps you're aware of some online resource you think everyone should know about. Well, let us know. Send us comments. We want to hear your ideas. After all, that's what this whole blog thing is all about.

Border Crossing

You know what they say about fools rushing in where angels fear to tread? Well, here goes nothing. With immigration back in the news and the Sierra Club thankfully not embroiled in the debate, I'll take a chance by linking to this item that appeared a couple years ago in the Why Files. It's still relevant, and best of all, it's rational. Why should you read it? Well, because population growth is an environmental problem that's not going away and immigration is one factor in that larger issue. Why not take a fresh look at it, at a time when passions on this side of the political divide are not running so very hot? Perhaps that's foolish of me, but as William Blake put it, "If the fool would persist in his folly, he would become wise."

Switching Off Coal

Writing in the New York Times, William Grimes has mostly good things to say about reporter, Jeff Goodell's new book-length expose, Big Coal, which strives to make visible the considerable but largely hidden costs of our dependence on the stuff. In case you didn't know it, we Americans get more energy from coal than any other source. Goodell, it seems, argues persuasively that that will have to change. Where he falters, at least according to Grimes, is in the "how" department. Writes Grimes:

Are Americans willing to pay 20 to 25 percent more to turn on a light or cool their homes? Here the hardheaded Mr. Goodell goes a little soft. Essentially, he is asking average consumers to dig deeper and pay more now for vaguely perceived future benefits. Present pain for future gain does not usually add up to a winning political selling point, so to get it across, Mr. Goodell makes wild promises. A total commitment to clean energy could, he argues, "unleash a jobs bonanza that would make what happened in Silicon Valley in the 1990's look like a bake sale." How this will come about remains a little mysterious. It just will.

Having not read the book, I can't say whether Grimes is being fair in that assessment. But, it's worth noting that the smart money is increasingly betting on Greentech and alternative energy to be, if you will, the Next Big Thing. Having seen the writing on the wall, many major industries are now beginning to plan for a carbon-constrained future. So, I suspect Goodell is right when he compares what's coming to the Internet boom, only bigger. Energy makes the world go round, after all, and whoever comes up with the solutions to our current energy and warming woes, stands to rule the future.

I'm curious. What do other folks think? Will alternative energy be the Next Big Thing?

Joining the Parade

First there was the Time magazine cover. Then USA Today ran a week-long series on the subject. Then Al Gore's slide-show-cum-movie hit theaters nationwide, and his book hit the bestseller list. And now, the latest manifestation of the trend: Global warming will be the subject of the cover story in this weekend's Parade magazine: The scientific consensus on human-caused global warming has finally gone mainstream.

The popular Sunday supplement, which has a circulation in excess of 30 million, will carry the cover line, "How Climate Change Affects You Right Now" over a photo of a sweat-soaked businessman mopping his brow with his tie. Given the usual celebrity-obsessed fare in Parade, you might expect the actual article to be, well, a hack job. Actually, the story is written by respected science writer and author, Eugene Linden and all indications are that it's the real deal.

So, what does it all mean? For some time now, people on this side of the climate "debate" have been talking wistfully about reaching a "tipping point" in terms of popular opinion on global warming -- the same tipping point Frank Luntz alluded to in his now-infamous memo to Republicans back in 2003, when he opined that, "Should the public come to believe the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly." Well, sure enough, even Luntz himself admits the tide has turned. As the pollster recently told the BBC: "It's now 2006. I think most people would conclude that there is global warming taking place and that the behavior of humans are (sic) affecting the climate."

Have we, then, reached the political tipping point? Well, clearly not everyone has joined Parade in the march of reason. Many industry front-groups and so-called "think tanks" are still stubbornly insisting that climate change is some massive hoax masterminded by ... well, by whom it's not clear -- evil forces of some sort or other. Their numbers are fast dwindling however, and it's hard to avoid the conclusion that the times they are indeed a-changin'.

New Job for Mr. Jolie

Actor Brad Pitt has narrated a six-part PBS series on green architecture called design:e2. No, really. The topic should be a good match for the "carbon-neutral" movie star and longtime Gehry groupie. Check local airdates for the show, which runs through early July, and let us know if it's first-rate or fluff.

(Get more media and lifestyle news in "The Green Life," a new section appearing in every issue of Sierra magazine.)

ZAP-ster

The Smart is a car you wanna wrap your arms around, not only 'cuz they're cute but because it looks like you might actually be able to. The diminutive autos are ubiquitous in European cities (Tom Hanks zips around Paris in one in "The Da Vinci Code"), where parking space is scarce and gas is generally $4 a gallon or more. Until recently, however, you couldn't buy one in the United States. That has changed. ZAP, a Santa Rosa, California company whose name stands for Zero Auto Pollution, has started importing the 60-mpg cars in limited quantities. The company is betting that, contrary to the myth that Americans will only drive super-sized cars, the tiny two-seaters will ride the same wave of popularity that has made the Mini Cooper a hit and spawned a new class of compacts that includes the Honda Fit, the Toyota Yaris and the Nissan Versa.

Driving Change

How efficient is the typical internal combustion engine? Not very. According to the Department of Energy, only about 15 percent of the gas you burn actually moves the car and runs accessories like radio and AC. The rest is wasted. The diagram above shows where the most energy loss occurs. At fueleconomy.gov, the diagram is explained in greater detail.

The good news is that there are numerous market-ready technologies -- things like continuously variable transmissions and integrated starter systems -- that go a long way to reducing the waste, while saving you money at the pump. Smart automakers are already offering these technologies in their new models. To find out which cars and trucks get the best (and worst) fuel economy by class, go here.

For more, visit the Sierra Club's Clean Car Campaign. And remember: It is within Congress's power to increase efficiency standards for cars and trucks. The technology is there. We just need the exercise the good sense and political will to implement it.

Revkin on the North Pole

Andrew Revkin, the New York Times' man on the environmental science beat, has published a new book about the North Pole and global warming aimed at a young adult audience. He was interviewed recently by NPR's Terri Gross. You can listen to it here.

Historic First

President Bush is preparing to announce the creation of the world's largest marine sanctuary in the Northern Hawaiian Islands. The proposed sanctuary would encompass an area nearly the size of California. Environmental leaders appear shocked and pleased in equal measure. Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope told reporters: "This appears to be a solidly and well-reasoned environmental decision. I hope it is the first of many. Because it is the first."

Free Daryl!

Hannah Behind Bars. Willie and Woody plan to break her out.

Seriously, though, this issue has been brewing for a while. I haven't paid sufficient attention to do it justice, but you can find out more about the South Central Farm she was trying to save here.

In case you didn't know it, Hannah, a committed environmentalist, hosts the Sierra Club's Chronicles TV series.

Rove's Rule Change

Karl Rove may be off the hook in Plamegate, but he's still got plenty to answer for. The latest questionable dealings involve Rove and the EPA, as reported in today's Los Angeles Times. The paper reports on a letter sent by Texas oilman, Ernest Angelo, to Rove complaining about an EPA rule designed to protect groundwater from oil drilling activities. In the letter, Angelo, reportedly a hunting buddy of Rove's, complained that the rule had caused he and other oil cronies to "openly express doubt as to the merit of electing Republicans when we wind up with this type of stupidity." According to the Times' report:

Rove responded by forwarding the letter to top White House environmental advisors and scrawling a handwritten note directing an aide to talk to those advisors and "get a response ASAP."

Rove later wrote to Angelo, assuring him that there was a "keen awareness" within the administration of addressing not only environmental issues but also the "economic, energy and small business impacts" of the rule.

And, wouldn't you know it? The rule was relaxed. According to the report, a top EPA official wrote to Angelo letting him know that the agency had imposed a temporary delay on the rule, dutifully copying Rove, White House environmental advisor James L. Connaughton and then-EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman. As if that overture hadn't been obsequious enough, the final rule added "fine print to that broad exception in ways that critics, including six members of the Senate, say exceeds what Congress intended."

Senator Jim Jeffords (I-VT) was one of the legislators who issued strong objections to the rule. Jeffords said Congress said the rule, as issued, runs counter to the Clean Water Act.

Caption, Anyone?

Just couldn't resist sharing this photo from San Francisco's Portrero Hill.
(Photo credit: Tien Chiu)

The Consensus and Parallel Earth

If you've seen Al Gore's film, you may be curious about the paper he cites in which a survey of 928 peer-reviewed climate studies turned up precisely none (nada, nil, zero, zilch) that dissented from the consensus view on human-driven global warming. The results of the survey, authored by science historian Naomi Oreskes, were presented in a short essay in the journal Science, under the sensible title, "The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change. You can (and should) read it here.

Of course, Oreskes' findings were immediately attacked and denounced, and to this day, the usual suspects insist that her paper was "debunked." It wasn't. Despite their objections, Oreskes' critics failed to turn up a single peer-reviewed study to substantiate their challenge.

So, how do the so-called skeptics continue denying reality? They just do. As the writer Joel Achenbach summed it up in a wonderful article about them in a recent installment of the Washington Post Magazine:

...when you step into the realm of the skeptics, you find yourself on a parallel Earth. It is a planet where global warming isn't happening -- or, if it is happening, isn't happening because of human beings. Or, if it is happening because of human beings, isn't going to be a big problem. And, even if it is a big problem, we can't realistically do anything about it other than adapt.

In the mind of the "skeptics," global warming isn't happening because, well, ... because it's unthinkable -- an inconvenient truth.

So It Begins

Gov: 'Good god...Who would have thunk it?'

That's not an Onion headline. It just sounds like one. It seems Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (who, by the way, has no intention of seeing the Al Gore movie) was scheduled to meet with state and federal emergency managers today about his state's preparedness for hurricanes. Instead, he got the genuine article. Or nearly so. As of this writing, Tropical Storm Alberto -- the first named storm of the season -- is just 4 mph shy of attaining hurricane strength. An incredulous Gov. Bush told reporters, "Good god. You know. Who would have thunk it? This potentially could be a hurricane."

Alberto arrives just a day later than the first storm of last year's incredibly active season. Tropical Storm Arlene hit the Florida Panhandle on June 11, 2005.

Oceans Week? Who Knew?

Why didn't anyone tell me that last week was Oceans Week? What, you didn't know either? Well, it seems President Bush declared last week, June 6-10, 2006, National Oceans Week and called upon all Americans "to learn more about the vital role the oceans play in the life of our country and how we can conserve their many natural treasures." So, let's look at the oceans for a second.

The thing in the picture (above left) is something called an Argo float. There are thousands of them around the world and, in combination with satellites, they are used to measure the rise of sea level (Wrong, it turns out: see comments below). Changing sea level is one of the more important considerations when it comes to the oceans and us.

Here's what scientists know so far: Between 1993 and 2005, sea level rose an average of 3 mm. Sounds manageable, doesn't it? But here's the thing: Scientists say the oceans have been absorbing the bulk of the excess energy trapped by greenhouse gases. This translates into warmer oceans, which can cause considerable disruptions in weather patterns, not to mention significant problems for marine life. Witness, for example, bleaching coral reefs. But even more ominously, it means that the oceans have masked the full greenhouse effect. As Dr. Lee-Lueng Fu, a scientist with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) explains:

"More heat is coming into Earth's atmosphere than is going out. Over the past 40 years, the ocean has absorbed 84 percent of this excess heat--enough heat to warm the entire atmosphere by 27 degrees Celsius (49 degrees Fahrenheit)." The ocean has been able to absorb this heat by mixing warm surface water with much colder water from its depths, he explains. "The question is how long can it continue to do this."

How long indeed? If the excess heat is no longer absorbed by the ocean, where will it go? If it melts glaciers and ice caps, then the world will see sea levels rising at a far faster rate than 3mm per year. Already, the loss of ice from Greenland has doubled in the last decade. And, according to JPL's Dr. Eric Rignot, "Melting ice on Greenland raised global sea level by three and half meters (about 11 feet) in the last interglacial. This is where we are heading and it looks like we could get there much sooner than we thought."

In other words, Americans may soon get to know the ocean far more intimately then they ever cared to.

Blue/Green Solidarity

Despite strong affinities, labor and environmental groups have a history of butting heads. Earlier this week, however, the Sierra Club -- the nation's largest grassroots environmental group -- and United Steelworkers -- the largest manufacturing union in America -- put aside any differences to forge a new "Blue/Green Alliance" aimed at, in the words of Steelworkers' chief Leo Gerard, blowing up "the myth that you can't have a clean environment and good jobs."

Among the goals of the new progressive coalition: ratification of the Kyoto Treaty on greenhouse gas emissions, the adoption of higher fuel mileage standards for car makers and the implementation of stronger environmental and worker protections in international trade agreements.

Working together, the two groups, which claim a combined membership of more than 1.5 million, hope to reach a broader cross-section of Americans than either could alone. The Steelworker's David Foster explains to the New York Times:

Unions have become so isolated in the country today and have become so narrowly typecast by many Americans that we don't have the outreach to talk to a lot of people. Environmentalists are often seen as too elitist to have an audience with working-class Americans. By creating this new vehicle, we hope to be able to talk to a lot of people who wouldn't usually talk to environmental advocates or labor unions.

Banking on Hybrids

Bank of America garnered some favorable headlines this week with the announcement that it would offer 21,000 employees in 3 cities $3,000 rebates on the purchase of fuel-efficient hybrid vehicles. Combined with government incentives, the program could take as much as $6,000 off the price of a new hybrid car. While B of A now becomes the largest company to offer such a program (it has tentative plans to extend the program company-wide), it is not alone; Tech giant Google, for example, offers its employees $5,000 on the purchase of a hybrid, or $2,500 to lease. Given the press B of A's announcement received, more large companies are expected to follow suit.

Also this week, Toyota announced that cumulative sales of its popular Prius hybrid recently surpassed the 500,000 mark.

Calling All Cartoonists

In order to highlight the disturbing pattern of distortion and censorship of government science under our current political regime, the Union of Concerned Scientists has launched Science Idol: The Scientific Integrity Editorial Contest to solicit editorial cartoons that "address the misuse of science." The deadline for entries is July 31 and among the judges are New Yorker cartoon editor, Robert Mankoff, and the Christian Science Monitor's Pulitzer-winning cartoonist, Clay Bennett. Twelve finalists will be selected for publication in the 2007 Defending Science Calendar. So, what are you waiting for? Sharpen your pencils and get to it.

Mind the Gap

In the cool tools department, check out Gapminder, a free software application that makes it easy (or at least easier) to visualize important development statistics, including such disparate data as child mortality rates and per capita carbon dioxide emissions. Indeed, using the new Google version of Gapminder, you can chart both sets of data on the same graph. The Swedish software has also been used by the UN to produce an interactive presentation for the "Human Development Report 2005." (Highly recommended.) For those who have been to London, the name Gapminder will doubtless recall the signs and announcements warning travelers in the tube to watch their step when boarding the subway trains. Of course, in the context of world development, the reference is to an equally real but far more pernicious and largely ignored gap -- the one between rich and poor.

Fuel Economy Blues

I’m tired of my 21-year-old car. It’s a 1985 Honda Civic wagon with 145,000 miles on it. No air bags, power steering, not even cup holders. It’s reliable and I don’t drive much and I’m a cheapskate, but I’m finally thinking that it’s okay for me to get something a little bit newer.

But, but...

I went to the Sierra Club’s “I Want My MPG” fuel calculator, which allows you find out how much you’d save on gas for your car model if fuel economy were modernized. But other than hybrids, practically the only cars available in 2006 that get better mileage than my 21-year-old Honda Civic are newer Honda Civics.

So if I want to get mileage as good or better than what I currently get – I average about 28 or so, but if I’m driving mostly highway miles, I can get close to 35 – I only have a few choices other than hybrids. That’s practically criminal.

Now in 1985, my personal computer had 128 kilobytes of RAM and no hard drive. If that technology progressed as slowly as the auto industry, I’d have, well, maybe 200 kb of RAM today. I mean, my alarm clock has more juice than my 1985 computer.

But really, this is not about me. I’m just using my car dilemma as an excuse to highlight the fuel calculator and express my outrage at the auto industry’s unwillingness to improve fuel economy and at our political leaders for letting the auto industry get away with it.

Plug in your make and model and see how much money and global warming pollution you could save if fuel economy standards were modernized. Go to sierraclub.org/mpg/.

The Big Flip

Forget Gregg Easterbrook's confession on Slate that he has finally been persuaded by the science. Never mind Michael Shermer's "cognitive flip" at Scientific American. All the many recent conversions of global warming skeptics to global warming believers pale in comparison to this one: The latest climate contrarian to come around is pollster Frank Luntz.

You read that right. The author of the infamous memo coaching the Republicans to exploit whatever uncertainties remained in the science of global warming now tells the BBC that he accepts the scientific consensus. (It comes just a few minutes into the video.)

Luntz: "It's now 2006. I think most people would conclude that there is global warming taking place and that the behavior of humans are (sic) affecting the climate."

BBC: "But the administration has continued taking your advice. They're still questioning the science."

Luntz: "That's up to the administration. I'm not the administration. What they want to do is their business. It has nothing to do with what I write. It has nothing to do with what I believe."

Nice how he can just walk away from it like that, eh?

The main focus of the BBC program is not Luntz, but on efforts by the administration to carry out his directive of quashing the consensus view while courting the naysayers.

Energy: A Single-Cell Solution?

In environmental terms, the microbial fuel cell is close to perfect, since it oxidizes organic carbon, making energy without pollution. The carbon dioxide will be recycled into plants that could become more fuel, so the system won't contribute to global warming. And the bacto-gadget works, Lovley says. "It's a self-sustaining, perpetual system, with long-term reliability.

This is one of those stories which you read and then wonder, Hey, why haven't I heard more about this Geobacter stuff? And, Why isn't this being done on a larger scale? Why isn't there big research money flowing into this? Why? Why? Why? Will someone out there who knows give me an answer? Mahalo.

Gonna Take an Ocean...

...of calamine lotion if climate change isn't addressed soon. At least, that's what researchers at Duke University in North Carolina concluded after studying an experimental forest plot where the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air can be precisely controlled. Apparently, poison ivy loves high levels of CO2. Not only does it grow better -- it gets more poisonous. That's just one of a growing list of pests, including ticks, mosquitos, fire ants, and Japanese beetles, that stand to benefit from rising levels of the most abundant greenhouse gas:

"It's not at all surprising that pests get pestier" because of changing environmental conditions, said May R. Berenbaum, head of the department of entomology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who was involved in the Japanese beetle studies. "They have this opportunistic life history."

Now Playing

Roger Ebert gives an impassioned and unequivocal review of the Al Gore global warming documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," which opens in select theaters this weekend. He writes: "You owe it to yourself to see this film. If you do not, and you have grandchildren, you should explain to them why you decided not to." Two thumbs way the hell up.

Hurricane Outlook

Today is the official beginning of the hurricane season and while forecasters at the National Hurricane Center are predicting it to be a "very active" one, 2006 is not expected to rival last year's devastating performance.

Imagery from NASA's Earth Observatory provides some insight into how forecasters make the determination: While Atlantic sea surface temperatures (the basic fuel that energizes hurricanes) are currently above average, they are not as extreme as they were in 2005. As of May 30, 2006 sea surface temperatures were 2 degrees cooler than at the same time last year.

For the record, the average Atlantic hurricane season produces 11 named storms, with six becoming hurricanes, including two major (Category 3 or higher) storms. This year, NOAA is predicting 13 to 16 named storms, with 8 to 10 of those reaching hurricane intensity, including four to six major hurricanes.

In the record-shattering hurricane season of 2005, there were 28 storms, with 15 hurricanes, seven of which were major, including four Category 5 storms. Only by comparison does this year's outlook seem mild.

Lost in the Supermarket?

"If you find the supermarket increasingly alien, that's because it is," writes Dorothy Kalins in a review in the New York Times of two new books on food: Peter Singer and Jim Mason's The Way We Eat and Marion Nestle's What We Eat. Kalins writes admiringly of both books, but despite the similar titles, she finds two very different approaches to the subject. Where the former, being concerned primarily with animal welfare, lays a heavy moral burden on the reader, the latter is more focused on nutrition and consumer choices. Kalin says Nestle's book is "radiant with maxims to live by." I don't know about you, but that's what I'm looking for.

Nestle -- thorn in the side of the sugar lobby, and America's unofficial 'food sheriff,' (according to this profile in the Christian Science Monitor) -- has a talent for pithy pronouncements that cut through all the complexities of modern life to get right at the heart of things. A sample from her latest book: "All margarines are basically the same mixtures of soybean oil and food additives. Everything else is theater and greasepaint."

As for navigating that increasingly alien supermarket, Nestle offers a straightforward rule-of-thumb: "Don't shop the center aisles, and don't buy things with long ingredient lists." Words to shop by.