The Control of Nature

The title of this post is taken from John McPhee's 1989 book of the same name. For anyone who wants to better understand the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and its history on the Lower Mississippi, the book--or, rather, the first part of the book, called "Atchafalaya"--is required reading. In that chapter, McPhee trains his sights on the Old River Control Structure, which has kept the Atchafalaya River from "stealing" the Mississippi's flow and shunting the delta more than 100 miles west. As today's Earth Observatory entry explains:

The delta switching has occurred every 1,000 years or so in the past. As sediment accumulates in the main channel, the elevation increases, and the channel becomes more shallow and meandering. Eventually the river finds a shorter, steeper descent to the Gulf.

Namely, the Atchafalaya. Such a shift would have left New Orleans and Baton Rouge effectively high and dry, something Louisiana and Congress obviously couldn't countenance, and so the Old River Control was built. The repercussions of bending the river to our needs are of course still being felt. As Michael Grunwald notes in the article referenced in the previous post:

The Corps has been at war with the Mississippi for a century, and the massive levees it built along the river have helped keep middle America dry. But this war on nature has had unintended consequences, choking off the river's natural land-building process. The straitjacketed Mississippi no longer carried as much silt from its banks and its floodplain down to its delta, so it no longer created as many of the coastal wetlands that served as natural hurricane protection for New Orleans. The city was now safe from the river, but dangerously exposed to the gulf; 25 square miles of protective wetlands vanished every year -- partly because of the oil industry, but mostly because of the Corps. And since the huge silt infusions that had shored up the city's foundations no longer arrived, New Orleans began to sink.

Overall, scientists believe these land losses raised Katrina's surge by several feet.

Blame Where it Belongs

In a must-read opinion piece on Grist, Washington Post reporter Michael Grunwald rips into the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, arguing that it, more than any other player in the Katrina drama, was responsible for the tragedy. Say anything you want about the post-Katrina response, argues Grunwald, the criminally incompetent party was the pork-fattened Corps, which the media, and thus the public, has more or less let off the hook.

Sure, the response was botched, but, says Grunwald, if a building collapsed, would we concentrate our criticism on the police and fire departments? Hell no. We'd point the finger squarely at the architect and the builder, which, in the case of New Orleans, happens to be the Corps. By extension, Congress is also to blame, for using Corps projects "to steer jobs and cash to constituents and contributors," which has resulted in boondoggles too numerous to mention.

Yukking It Up with Al Gore

Back in June, just after Tropical Storm Alberto made landfall in Florida, I had an opportunity to talk on the phone with Al Gore. You can read the results of the interview in the latest edition of Sierra magazine. While the topic of our conversation -- global warming, the Kyoto Protocol, carbon offsets, etc. -- isn't exactly rich comic material, I did manage to make the former veep laugh in a spontaneous and genuine enough way to satisfy myself that the notion of Gore as stiff and wooden was never more than political caricature. The exchange didn't make it into the final transcript and, anyway, the humor would have gotten lost on the page. But you can listen to the audio outtake and judge for yourself. Does the dude laugh or what?

Laboratory Earth

Most science is done in a lab, where controlled experiments can be rigorously designed and hypotheses carefully put to the test. Not so, earth science. The only way to study Earth's atmosphere, for example, is to model it in all its complexity and nuance -- no small project and one that requires constant refinement.

If there can be any silver lining in Hurricane Katrina, perhaps it's that storm contributed to our knowledge base by providing the "perfect proving ground" for GEOS-5, the latest global atmospheric model developed at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. In running a computer simulation of the 2005 hurricane season, the NASA Earth Observatory reports, the model was not perfect but was able to "predict Hurricane Katrina very well."

It's fair to say that computer models are generally viewed with suspicion (if not outright contempt) by the global warming naysayers, and certainly some degree of skepticism is both warranted and healthy. But when the models stand up to the test and perform better with each new refinement, the contempt for models begins to seem less like well-founded doubt than a dogged determination to reject the truth.

When the Levee Breaks

The problem with levees is they encourage development in vulnerable areas -- namely, the floodplain. Not only that, but when they fail, as they're prone to do, they raise the level of inland floods. And they're expensive. But despite the fact that floodplain management is cheaper than flood control, we keep fortifying levees and building in harm's way -- not just in New Orleans but in other flood-prone places like Sacramento, California and the bottomlands around Saint Louis, Missouri, where the Mississippi, Illinois and Missouri Rivers all converge. With the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina just around the corner, The Why Files asks why, after so many repeated disasters, we haven't yet learned our lesson.

Wildlife Sightings

A Florida manatee off Cape Cod.

A sunfish netted off the Faroes.

A blue-footed booby in Washington State.

What the hell is going on?!?

Anyone have more out-of-place critters to report? Send them along.

A Tiger, in Africa?

As fans of Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life" surely know, there are no tigers in Africa. Or there weren't, until Li Quan, a Chinese-born former Gucci exec, moved four captive South China tigers to the Laohu Valley Reserve in South Africa for "re-wilding." One of those tigers, Hope, died last year (how poignant is that?); now three remain, learning to survive by hunting antelope on the African veld in the hopes that they can one day be reintroduced to the Chinese wilderness the species evolved in.

A century ago, as many as 50,000 Chinese tigers roamed the wild. Today, the number is fewer than 50. More survive in zoos.

The controversial effort in South Africa is part of a campaign Ms. Quan started called Save China's Tigers. As the Christian Science Monitor reports, some critics say she is overreaching, a dilettante 'playing conservationist,' but Quan defends the last-ditch effort. "We're at the end of the road with these animals. We can't simply say, 'Let's write them off.' We have the responsibility to try something."

What do you think? Is Ms. Quan overreaching or do desperate times call for desperate measures?

Climate Repair Manual

The most recent issue of Scientific American is devoted to the future of energy. Most of the content is limited to subscribers, but the introduction ("A Climate Repair Manual" by Gary Stix) is available to everyone. No hemming and hawing here about whether or not anthropogenic global warming is real. It is. The trick now is to translate "the scientific consensus on climate change into a consensus on what should be done about it."

Object Lesson: Cuba

Can the U.S. learn anything from Castro's Cuba?

Yes, says Nicholas Von Hoffman. In a short piece in The Nation, the old lefty stalwart compares and contrasts the fates of Cuba and North Korea after the demise of the Soviet Union. As the Eastern Bloc fell apart, both countries were left politically isolated and petroleum-starved.

In response, North Korea turned to pillaging its natural resources, burning biomass and neglecting its soils until the populace starved and the country collapsed. Cuba was a different story. As discussed in previous posts, the island nation reinvented itself, turning to small-scale organic agriculture and ultimately becoming self-sufficient -- a country that feeds itself.

With the world's petroleum reserves dwindling, these examples should serve as lessons to us, argues Von Hoffman. To wit:

As the age of oil ends, a society that clings to the social and economic institutions and practices of the early twenty-first century will go the way of North Korea. The lesson to be learned from these two Communist states is change or die.

Straight Reporting

Grist queries some of the leading environmental journalists on the line between advocacy and reporting. The question is:

As you've covered environmental issues over the years, have you found yourself conflicted over your role as objective reporter vs. concerned citizen or activist? Do you believe your role or approach has changed, or should change -- particularly as climate change and other problems intensify?

Respondents include: Felicity Barringer and Andrew Revkin of the New York Times; Ross Gelbspan, formerly of the Boston Globe; The New Yorker's Elizabeth Kolbert; and Michael Grunwald of the Washington Post.

The responses are all nuanced and worth reading, but Grunwald seems to sum up the general attitude when he says: "I believe in facts; it's our only real value-add as journalists. Anyone can provide spin."

Renewables for Kids

The latest issue of Tunza, a magazine published by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), is devoted to renewable energy. While the publication is geared to youth, rest assured there's plenty in it for both kids and adults. For a sample of the editorial offerings, check out the 7 energy wonders, which include the crank-powered laptop, the Helios solar-powered airplane, and a compact, egg-beater style wind turbine designed to bring wind power to urban settings. The whole issue is available online, in both HTML and pdf versions.

UNEP's principal magazine, Our Planet, is also online. It ran a renewable energy issue earlier in the year. You can find it and many other UNEP publications at ourplanet.com.

Life Cycle Analyses

Over at Grist, the ever-mysterious Umbra responds to a question about whether electric cars are everything they're cracked up to be, environmentally speaking. Sure, a reader says, "They don't pollute the air where they are driven. But certainly when they are plugged in they use energy from a power plant, which does pollute and also contributes to global warming. Doesn't this just move the pollution from one area to another?" In the final analysis, are electric cars cleaner than those that run on gasoline engines? As usual, the answer is: That depends. (You'll have to read her answer for yourself, but here's a hint: It has to do with how the electricity is made.)

What I wanted to highlight here was Umbra's link to the ILEA. That's the Institute for Lifecycle Environmental Assessment, where they focus on breaking down those nagging questions that never seem to get a satisfying answer. Not just electric v. gasoline cars, but also things like paper v. plastic, cloth v. disposable diapers, and manufacture v. use of automobiles -- that is, is it better to buy a new, more efficient car or run your old one into the ground? According to a Carnegie Mellon life cycle analysis, the answer is: That depends -- in this case, on whether you're more concerned about energy use or toxic releases. Summarizing the findings, the folks at ILEA write:

...the bulk of environmental impacts from automobiles occur during the use stage. The implicit message is that if you can replace your car with one that is more energy efficient, chances are high that you truly will be reducing your overall environmental impact. However, if you are a person who considers toxic releases more important than energy use, then it is wiser to hold on to your existing car, in order to avoid promoting the manufacture of a new one.

Dang, if only they had stopped at 'however.'

Growing Conviction

According to a new Zogby poll:

Nearly three of every four – 74% – are more convinced today that global warming is a reality than they were two years ago, the survey shows. Dramatically, it is a sentiment shared by a majority of Democrats, Republicans, and political independents.

But wait, there's more:

The survey also indicated there is strong support for measures to require major industries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to improve the environment without harming the economy – 72% of likely voters agreed such measures should be taken.

Finally, some interesting thoughts on the findings at RealClimate.

Vizualize Coffee and Fries

The International Networks Archive charts our growing appetites and maps out globalization in ways that almost makes it seem comprehensible.

And if you dig this kind of thing, you'll also be interested in the Digital Earth Summit coming later this month to Auckland, NZ.

Worst Yet to Come

Quote:

"I think the day is coming. I think eventually we're going to have a very powerful hurricane in a major metropolitan area worse than what we saw in Katrina and it's going to be a mega-disaster. With lots of lost lives. ...I don't know whether that's going to be this year or five years from now or a hundred years from now. But as long as we continue to develop the coastline like we are, we're setting up for disaster."

-- Max Mayfield, Director, U.S. National Hurricane Center

Dr. Gaia's Bitter Pill

Tim Flannery, Australian scientist and author of The Weather Makers, reviews James Lovelock's The Revenge of Gaia for The Washington Post. Flannery calls the provocative global warming book a "wondrous and novel essay both for what it has to say and for the insight it affords into one of the most ingenious, if eccentric, minds of our age." Ultimately, he says, the book is a must-read that "will surely offend" nearly everyone who does.

Why? Well, for starters, the 87-year-old Lovelock's vision of the future is Apocalypse, plain and simple -- the end of civilization, with only a tiny remnant of humanity surviving to carry on. Is there hope? Yes, says Lovelock, but only if we plunge headlong and without hesitation into a nuclear-powered future. Of other, safer forms of renewable energy he is glibly dismissive. Solar is too expensive, geothermal too meager, wind an abomination that will turn the countryside into one vast power plant. "Vandalism in the name of ideology," is how Lovelock characterizes the wind power boomlet in Europe.

And what of radioactive waste? "One of the striking things about places heavily contaminated by radioactive nuclides is the richness of their wildlife," he writes, pointing to the countryside around Chernobyl as Exhibit A. Furthermore, he says, "The best sites for its disposal are the tropical forests and other habitats in need of a reliable guardian." For any green or environmentalist who assumed that Lovelock, father of the Gaia hypothesis, was one of them, this will come as a cold shower indeed. In the final analysis, he is his own man: an iconoclast.

It's worth noting that, in The Weather Makers, Flannery leans heavily on the Gaian view of Earth as a self-regulating entity -- not sentient, mind you, but a functioning super-organism nonetheless. Flannery also shares Lovelock's sense of alarm about out predicament, but advocates neither his harsh prescription nor his extreme pessimism. Still, a certain awe for the older scientist comes through in Flannery's review: A sense that, while we may disagree with Lovelock, and hope to hell he's wrong, he's just too smart to ignore.

Reality TV

In October, the Weather Channel will launch a new weekly series called "The Climate Code," hosted by climatologist Heidi Cullen, formerly a scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Dr. Cullen says she wants to bring climate concerns to a more personal level. Speaking to the National Association of Black Journalists, Cullen said: "The climate is connected to energy, which is connected to population, which is connected to the economy. So I want each show to start with the science and then eventually lead you to your back yard."

Any Excuse to Get Kinky

Friedman, that is.

From the incomparable Grist List.

Y'all have a nice weekend.

Soy Vey!

This story in the Christian Science Monitor caught my eye. It's entitled "Soy replaces silk in the world of sustainable fashion." It's about supposedly eco-consious fashion designers making their couture dresses and whatnot out of supposedly eco-friendly fabrics -- fabrics made from, among other things, soy.

Now, I like my soy milk and tofu as much as the next guy, but let's get one thing straight: There is nothing inherently sustainable about it. The soy crop is, by and large, an intensively farmed monoculture, the great bulk of which has been genetically modified to withstand the herbicide glysophate, aka Roundup. According to this Pew study, as of 2004, GMOs made up 85 percent of the US soy plantings in the U.S..

Lately, soy agriculture has also become one of the main drivers in the destruction of the Amazon as well as the savannah lands of Brazil and Argentina. You could argue, (and I'd be inclined to agree) that this is a function of overpopulation, and its evil twin, overconsumption. But that doesn't make it any more sustainable. Ditto for the fashion industry.

There,...I'm glad I got that off my chest.

Topic of Discussion

Remember the oil spill from the bombed out power plant near Beirut? The NASA Earth Observatory captured an image of the spreading slick from space and reports that, weeks later, nothing has been done about it:

"Because cleanup efforts could not safely begin until the hostilities ended, the oil slick continued to spread in the Mediterranean Sea in early August 2006. Representatives from the United Nations, the European Union, and the International Maritime Organization planned to discuss the issue in Greece on August 17, 2006."

Other news organizations are reporting that OPEC will give $200,000 to help aid in the clean-up. Some sources say the spill will ultimately cost Lebanon upwards of $200 million. No word yet on how much Israel and Hezbollah will pony up.

Radical Idea

Hung out to dry.

Holy Mola!

And now, once again, for something completely different: A sunfish off the Faroes!

Last month, 19 of the curious fish were spotted some 800 miles south, off Cornish coast, still far outside their usual range. [Or perhaps not. See reader comment to this post.]
Sunfish, or mola mola, are a warm water species. Researchers speculate the fish have been drawn north, like their prey, the jellyfish, by warmer waters off Europe.

Powering China

China is now the 2nd biggest consumer of electricity in the world, after the U.S., and most of that power comes from coal. That's the bad news. The good news is that the Chinese leadership knows it has a problem and is taking some steps to rein in the country's burgeoning fossil fuel appetite. To cite one example, the government has mandated the use of solar power to heat water in all new housing construction in the booming city of Shenzhen. By 2010, according to official reports, half of the new buildings in the economic power house will have solar water heating systems, while 20 percent of them will use solar power for generating electricity. Let's hope it's just the beginning of a much wider trend.

Have it Your Way

Don't like seeing Hummers in the Happy Meals at McDonald's? Environmental Working Group is encouraging folks to parody the campaign. You can slap your satire right up there beneath the golden arches.

Down on the Pharm

A district judge in Hawaii concluded that the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) broke the law when it allowed hundreds of acres in the state to be planted with crops genetically modified to produce human hormones and ingredients for vaccines against AIDS and hepatitis B--a practice known as biopharming--without first conducting an adequate study of the risks such plants posed to native endangered species. The judge wrote the the agency showed "utter disregard" for what was a "clear congressional mandate." The ruling has prompted environmentalists for a moratorium on such open-air tests.

In a separate story, EPA scientists have found genetically engineered grass growing in the wild in Central Oregon. As the New York Times reports,

genetically engineered grass, called creeping bentgrass, is being developed by the Scotts Miracle-Gro Company and Monsanto for use on golf courses. It contains a bacterial gene that makes the grass resistant to the herbicide Roundup, known generically as glyphosate. The goal is to create a product to allow groundskeepers to spray the herbicide on greens and fairways to kill weeds without hurting the grass.

The product has not yet been approved by the Agriculture Department.

Ecologists worry about the possibility that genes which render plants resistant to herbicide could make their way into related wild species, thereby creating difficult to control "superweeds."

Calamity Tours

From the NYTimes via Reuters: "Swiss Hostel Offers View of Crumbling Peak as Glacier Retreat"

Hansruedi Burgener has welcomed up to 800 people a day — twice the average number of visitors — to his remote mountain hostel in the Alps this summer.

They all hope to watch a rock the size of two Empire State Buildings collapse onto the canyon floor, about 650 feet below, as retreating glacier ice robs a cliff face on the eastern edge of a mountain, the Eiger, of its main support. ...

Accessible only by a steep hike of more than an hour, Mr. Burgener’s place offers a safe view of the crumbling rock, plus cold beer and other refreshments.

Sounds kinda like The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. Well, at least somebody's making money off it.

Move Over Wal-Mart

In yet another article on the mainstreaming of environmentalism, Newsweek International reports that the world's third-largest retailer, Tesco, is building 80 new eco-stores in the UK.

... cash registers powered by rooftop wind turbines, skylights instead of light bulbs and photovoltaic solar cells on the roof to help power the bakery's oven. It's so environmentally friendly that even the toilet water is collected from raindrops outside. ... the greenest of [the new stores] will be constructed of recycled materials and will burn food waste for electricity—they're also making small changes that could have big effects. They're paying customers not to use plastic bags ...

Most Americans won't be familiar with it, but Tesco is Wal-Mart's European counterpart, founded on the same "pile it high, sell it cheap" philosophy as Sam Walton's and just as loathed by English progressives as Wal-Mart tends to be by American ones.

Don't Face Facts!

It has been a couple months since I finished reading the bound version of Elizabeth Kolbert's global warming series, Field Notes from a Castastrophe. As the best books will, it has been weighing on my mind ever since. In Sierra magazine not so long ago, I wrote that, if you were to read only one book on global warming, you should make it Tim Flannery's The Weather Makers. Now, I'm not so sure. As great as Flannery's book is, it hasn't stuck with me in quite the same way that Kolbert's has.

One passage in particular from Field Notes jumps to mind almost daily. It comes toward the end of the book, in the section about Burlington, Vermont's laudable efforts to shrink its carbon footprint. Kolbert writes:

If every single town in the United States were to match the efforts that Burlington has made, the aggregate savings would amount--very roughly--to 1.3 billion tons of carbon over the next several decades. Meanwhile, the lifetime emissions just from the new coal plants China is expected to build would amount to 25 billion tons of carbon. To put this somewhat differently, China's new plants would burn through all of Burlington's savings--past, present and future--in less than two and a half hours.

Despair might seem to be the logical response to such figures. In this way, the hazard of looking objectively at global warming can be almost as great as refusing to see the problem at all.

This is an occupational hazard for the environmental reporter, one Aldo Leopold foresaw when we wrote that, "One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds." How to cope? The trick, it seems to me, is to find some middle path between blind optimism and utter despair. It's like F. Scott Fitzgerald said:

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.

That those brave words were written by a hopeless drunk in a hopeless book called "The Crack-up" are facts we needn't focus on.

Hummer Envy

Last week, I posted an entry about toy Hummers in the Happy Meals at McDonald's. Now, the latest installment in what promises to be a series of astonishing Hummer campaigns:

New H3 ad. A guy is embarrassed at the checkout line at the grocery store because he's buying (gasp!) tofu. The guy behind him, meanwhile, is an unabashed meat-eater. He's stocking up on ribs and steaks. Chagrined, our veg-head friend makes a bee-line for the Hummer dealership and, wham bam, buys a spanking new H3, just like that. Driving off the lot, the tagline comes onscreen as our hero chomps a carrot. "Restore the balance," it says.

Slate's Seth Stevenson talks to a Hummer spokeswoman who explains that the ad is designed to make the H3 seem like a more "approachable vehicle that will appeal to introverts, extroverts, vegans, and carnivores." Writes Stevenson:

She's right that we wouldn't expect a tofu eater to buy a Hummer. But at the same time, the spot reinforces the central, classic stereotype about Hummer drivers: They buy big cars because they have small ... egos.

It's stunning how enthusiastically the ad embraces this idea. The entire plot is based on it: A guy feels wimpy because another guy saw him buying tofu, so he dashes out and buys a Hummer to feel better about himself. The original tag line of the ad was in fact "Restore your manhood." Hart says people called in to complain ("The whole idea of manhood and virility is a touchy subject," she points out, "especially for men")....

Uhh, ... you think?

As Stevenson notes, the funny thing about this is that it sends the message that Hummer drivers are compensating for inadequacies (whatever they might be). And, how, he wonders, is that a positive brand image? Beats the hell outta me. But, then, as insulting as the ad is (and, I mean, on so many levels), at the same time it's probably as close as we're ever going to get to truth in advertising. Don't you think?

To see the H3 spot for yourself, go to Hummer.com, then go to Hummer World, then TV Commercials, and finally, Tofu.

Climate vs. Weather

Sci-fi author and climate change denialist Michael Crichton in coversation with contrarian journalist John Stossel:

If somebody said, 'John, I've got a nice weather forecast for you for next year, this time next year,' you wouldn't [believe them]. How about this time a hundred years from now? I mean, are you going to give that any credence at all? No.

Physicist and Oceanographer Stefan Rahmstorf responding to a post on RealClimate.org (See: "Short and simple arguments for why climate can be predicted"):

Predicting climate is like predicting that the boiling water in the pot has a temperature of 100 ºC at sea level, but only 90 ºC at a particular altitude in the mountains. Predicting weather is like trying to predict where the next bubble will rise in the boiling pot.

Anonymous:

Climate is what you expect. Weather is what you get.

Still Number One

Back in April, writing in Publishers Weekly, Sara Nelson bet that the book version of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth wouldn't make "much of a peep in the political discourse." Furthermore, she said, "I'd bet my campaign contributions that [it's] not going to sell through all that well, either."

But with Gore's book now in its 10th week on the New York Times Bestsellers List and its 2nd consecutive week at number one, the columnist isn't crowing so much as eating crow.

The book has been a bonanza for Rodale. The publishing company's chief executive officer, Steve Murphy, compares An Inconvenient Truth to the sensational success of The South Beach Diet, which has sold 25 million copies. He told the Philadelphia Inquirer, "We're already on an exponential roll that feels similar... This book is tracking to be a mega-bestseller."

An Inconvenient Truth isn't Gore's first bestseller. In 1992, then-Senator Gore made the list with Earth in the Balance. Rodale plans to publish a revised edition of the earlier book, with release scheduled for Fall 2006.

Hot and Dry July

From the National Climatic Data Center putting the weather of July 2006 in historical perspective:

The continental United States suffered through its second-hottest July on record because of a blistering heatwave from California to Washington, D.C. The heatwave broke more than 2,300 daily temperature records for the month and eclipsed more than 50 records for the highest temperatures in any July, according to NOAA's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. The hottest July on record occurred in 1936, and the third hottest was 1934.

1934 and 1936 were, incidentally, Dust Bowl years.

The agency also reported that:

the first seven months of 2006 was the warmest January-July of any year in the United States since records began in 1895. And the scorching temperatures, combined with a shortage of rainfall, expanded moderate-to-extreme drought conditions in areas already hard hit.

And:

In July, 51 percent of the United States, mostly in the Plains states and Southeast, was in moderate-to-extreme drought (based on the Palmer Drought Index), an increase of five percent from June. This percentage ranks with the biggest droughts of the last 50 years. The most extensive drought occurred in July 1934 when 80 percent of the country was affected by moderate-to-extreme drought.

Talking Heads, Good Stuff

Tim Flannery, the celebrated Australian scientist and author of the excellent book, The Weather Makers: The History and Future Impact of Climate Change, is the most recent talking head to be featured on the website Big Picture, ("online tv for people who care"). If you didn't know about it, the site's definitely worth a visit, not to mention a bookmark. Among the other environmental thinkers in the lineup are such eco-celebs as Jane Goodall, Amory Lovins, and Wangari Maathai.

(Via Grist)

Rockin' in the Free World

The sound system on the "green stage" of the Vans Warped Tour pumps out 40,000 watts of electric mayhem and, guess what: it's all solar-powered. It's just one manifestation of a new eco-consciousness that's taking the rock world by storm. Among the environmentally aware acts named in this Christian Science Monitor piece about "rock's green days": Bio-Willie Nelson, Pearl Jam, Radiohead's Thom Yorke, Guster, Ray LaMontagne, Barenaked Ladies, R.E.M., the Indigo Girls, Jack Johnson, and Bon Jovi. All of them are taking steps to be carbon-neutral while on the road and to spread the message about climate change. Bon Jovi even plays Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth between sets. The Dave Matthews Band gets the most cred, though. DMB has not only been buying renewable energy credits to offset the emissions from this year's tour; they're compensating for the greenhouse gas emissions of all their tours, going back 15 years. Well, that deserves a standing ovation. Long live rock!

Muir Everlasting

Although he died in 1914, the founding president of the Sierra Club seems to be everywhere. His name is on schools and libraries, trails and overlooks. There is Camp Muir high on Mount Rainier and Muir Woods, the old-growth redwoods north of San Francisco. Muir Glacier calves into Alaska's Glacier Bay. In the High Sierra there is the spectacular John Muir Wilderness and the 211-mile-long John Muir Trail.

Muir's fame is hardly diminished by time. In 1976, the Scottish-born naturalist was named the Greatest Californian of All Time in a statewide poll. Last year, Muir was minted, his image embossed on the California Quarter alongside Yosemite's Half Dome and the soaring figure of a California condor. More recently, he claimed a place in the galaxy. Solar System object number 2004PX42 -- a minor planet orbiting between Mars and Jupiter -- is now officially known as Johnmuir. And, finally, earlier this month, Muir became one of the inaugural inductees in the California Hall of Fame.

As John Lennon said, We all shine on. It's just that some of us shine a little brighter. Muir is one of those.

Flirting with Disaster

The Atlantic has been blessedly quiet so far this hurricane season. Not so the Pacific. On Monday, the NASA Earth Observatory reported three different typhoons spinning over the Western Pacific simultaneously. One of those -- Typhone Saomai -- has since developed into a super-typhoon (equivalent to a strong Category 4 or Category 5 hurricane), reportedly the strongest cyclone to threaten China in 50 years. 1.3 million people were evacuated in advance of the storm, which made landfall today. Last month alone, nearly 1,000 lives were lost to natural disasters in China -- mostly due to typhoons. Amid lashing rains and flooding, officials are concerned about the integrity country's 85,000 dams, a third of which are considered unsafe. Some in Asia were reportedly yearning for a typhoon to strike. Korea has been suffering an intense heat wave and, as the newspaper Chosun Ilbo reports:

Typhoon Saomai -- this year's eighth - held a promise of cooling off the Korean Peninsula, but has disappointingly veered off toward southern China. The Korea Meteorological Administration predicted that only a typhoon will be able to bring down the insufferable temperatures.

Hummer and Fries

Hey kids, guess what? They're putting Hummers in the Happy Meals!

According to the press release, GM, the world's largest automaker (not for long) and McDonald's, the world's largest fast food chain, have teamed up to provide miniature gas hogs to burger-eating boys around the country. Yes, just boys; to reinforce gender roles, 'girl' happy meals will come with a Polly Pocket, whatever that is.

According to the press release, boys "will receive one of eight powerful, fun-fueled miniature HUMMER vehicles, with their purchase." The company says the Hummer toys will "spark the imagination of children nationwide." Here's one truly imaginative touch: The Laser Blue H2H sports a hydrogen tank which "guests can customize with 'Hydrogen' stickers" for "added fun." Oh boy! Too bad they didn't go with biodiesel instead. Then you could put stickers on there that said, "French fry grease." Oh well.

The "Hummer of a Summer" promotion seems especially ironic with gas prices as high as they are. As the New York Times reports, it currently costs about $96 to fill a Hummer H2. And, of course, at 11 mpg, you have to fill it often. No doubt that helps explain the drop-off in Hummer sales, which are down by 34 percent from last year.

Dang. If only they really were fun-fueled.

What Do You Think About Wal-Mart?

Retailing juggernaut Wal-Mart has long been anathema to environmentalists, but lately the company is making headlines left and right for a variety of green initiatives, from its entry into the organics market to its promotion of sustainable fisheries. Now, the latest: It seems Sam Walton's empire is considering getting into the ethanol business. As you may be aware, many new vehicles are equipped to run on E85, but good luck finding it. Oil companies, for obvious reasons, couldn't care less about the stuff. But Wal-Mart says it's interested. The story is part of a Fortune magazine report. On the web, the money mag asks readers their opinion: Is Wal-Mart's green renaissance for real? Or is this just more corporate bunkum? So, what about it? Putting aside the question of whether or not corn-based ethanol is a step in the right direction, what do you think about the bigger question? Wal-Mart: Good or evil?

Sign of the Times

The Inuit are ordering air conditioners.

Too bad the polar bears can't.

Three Cheers for Global Warming

Quote:

Personally, I don’t know what all the shouting is about. Global warming is great. Granted, maybe it isn’t really happening, and if it is there are strong reasons to doubt that humans have anything to do with it. But if the world is warming, I say "bravo." People in most parts of the globe should have no objection to a warmer, wetter climate. If the aliens were watching they’d conclude we were making our planet more habitable on purpose.

So, you're thinking 'parody,' right? Something from the Onion perhaps?

Nope. It's from the National Review. Apparently this joker is serious.

The Energy Beneath Our Feet

Malcolm Gladwell, the New Yorker staffer and author of the bestselling books, The Tipping Point and Blink, blogs about the geothermal heating system in his parents' home in Ontario. Actually, his father does most of the explication here, with a nice introduction that begins:

Geothermal heating and cooling is based on one simple fact: that 6 feet down in the ground the temperature is the same—between 50˚F and 60˚F- the whole year round. This means that it is relatively cool in the summer, and relatively warm in the winter. Geothermal heating is thus quite different from solar heating: solar heating works worst when you most need it--in the cold, cloudy, snowy conditions of winter; the source for geothermal heating and cooling is not affected by the weather. For geothermal cooling, all one needs to do is to circulate water in a pipe through the ground to cool it, and use this cool water to cool the air pumped through the house in the heating ducts.

Such systems are often referred to as heat pumps or heat exchangers, although as noted above, they are also adept at cooling as well, and far more efficient than conventional air conditioners.

One thing the Gladwells don't mention is that, in mild climates, so-called air source heat pumps are another good option for home heating and cooling. These systems use the difference between indoor and outdoor air temperatures to regulate the home's ambient temperatures. As with geothermal heat pumps, there's no fuel combustion involved. And, according to the Department of Energy, "When properly installed, an air-source heat pump can deliver one-and-a-half to three times more heat energy to a home than the electrical energy it consumes." So, given that, why isn't the Energy Department actively pushing heat pumps as one of the solutions to our growing energy crisis? Beats me.

As Gladwell concludes:

One of the frustrating things about the current discussion over our dependence on imported oil is the persistent notion that real solutions will require some future technological breakthrough. I think we have a lot of the answers. We just haven’t made consumers and public officials aware of them.

Anyone out there have personal heat-pump experience? How does the system work for your home?

Update: I just remembered: George W. Bush uses geothermal heating and cooling down on the ranch in Crawford. Don't believe me? Here's a document (pdf) from the National Renewable Energy Lab to substantiate the claim. The "Texas White House" is actually a fairly eco-sensitive spread, with a passive solar design, wastewater recycling and rainwater collection. The home was designed by green architect David Heyman. So,...maybe Gladwell needs to rethink his conclusion. It's not that "We just haven’t made consumers and public officials aware of them." It's more like they've been keeping them to themselves.

The Organic Revolution

With Fidel Castro in the news, it seems fitting to highlight this article from the UK Independent about Cuba's agricultural revolution -- territory covered last year in an excellent Harper's article by Bill McKibben but worth revisiting.

The story in a nutshell: After the collapse of the Soviet Bloc, Cuba's subsidies vanished and the island was left to feed itself -- literally. Suddenly, the caloric intake of the average Cuban fell by half and Cuba's political isolation left it with nowhere to turn but inward. The country began farming in a whole different fashion, with all food production now aimed strictly at meeting domestic demand. By necessity, the new agricultural system was largely organic and built around small farms and distributed (and, it should be noted, enforced) labor.

Whatever else you might say about Castro's Cuba, this agricultural revolution has been a success. As the newspaper reports:

Annual calorie intake now stands at about 2,600 a day, while UNFAO estimates that the percentage of the population considered undernourished fell from 8 per cent in 1990-2 to about 3 per cent in 2000-2. Cuba's infant mortality rate is lower than that of the US, while at 77 years life expectancy is the same.

The Basic Ocean

New Scientist speaks with marine ecologist Joanie Kleypas of the National Center for Atmospheric Research about "the other CO2 problem" -- that is, the acidification of the oceans and the implications of the phenomenon for marine ecosystems. You can listen to their conversation here. Subscribers can access the complete story.

For Your Browsing Pleasure

Looking for a good read? Check out Sierra Bookshelf at Powell's Bookstore.

Polling Figures

For what it's worth, a new poll from the LA Times/Bloomberg shows that more Americans than ever disapprove of President Bush's job on the environment, with 56 percent of respondents saying the prez is doing too little. 74 percent of respondents believe global warming is a serious problem. See the rest here.

Now For Something Completely Different...

A manatee in the Hudson.

Really.

Space is the Place

The Why Files weighs in on NASA's top-level decision to strike any mention of protecting and understading our home plant from the agency's mission statement and ponders what it means for the future of Earth studies and Earth itself.

Theology

Regarding a pending Supreme Court ruling on the question of whether or not the EPA can regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant, Representative Joe Barton (R-TX), reportedly said: "I cannot imagine any objective finding that CO2 is a pollutant. If that's true, God is a polluter."

Interesting logic. I wonder what Pat Robertson would say to that.

Lasers in the Jungle Somewhere ...

... Staccato signals of constant information ....

The Paul Simon lyrics were prompted by this item about how NASA is using something called a Laser Vegetation Imaging Sensor (LVIS) to search for ivory-billed woodpecker habitat. Here's how it works:

The instrument uses lasers that send pulses of energy to the Earth's surface. Photons of light from the lasers bounce off leaves, branches and the ground and reflect back to the instrument. By analyzing these returned signals, scientists receive a direct measurement of the height of the forest's leaf covered tree tops, the ground level below and everything in between.

"LVIS is aiding this search effort far beyond what aircraft photos or satellite images can provide in the way of just a two-dimensional rendering of what's below," said Woody Turner, Program Scientist at NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.

Woody and the woodpecker. You can't make this stuff up.

Mainstream Media

The August issue of Smithsonian has an environmental emphasis, with feature stories on what warming means for tropical cloud forests and the mainstreaming of bio-plastics. Don't miss the green-oriented "Web only" items, including an article about sustainable cities and another about the New Urbanist movement.

Architecturally inclined readers may also be interested in the latest issue of Dwell, which sports the cover line: Green Goes Mainstream: Sustainable Homes of Tomorrow, Today.

Pass the Hagfish

Over at Shifting Baselines, Randy Olson and crew have raised the bar for themselves with a website re-launch and (grab your digicams, everybody!) film contest. The media-savvy ocean advocates are asking budding filmmakers to submit 60-second flix that will raise awareness of our oceans and the drastic changes they are undergoing.

What kind of changes, you ask? Well, I'll give just one example, lifted from the Altered Oceans series I keep flogging.

In many places - the atolls of the Pacific, the shrimp beds of the Eastern Seaboard, the fjords of Norway - some of the most advanced forms of ocean life are struggling to survive while the most primitive are thriving and spreading. Fish, corals and marine mammals are dying while algae, bacteria and jellyfish are growing unchecked. Where this pattern is most pronounced, scientists evoke a scenario of evolution running in reverse, returning to the primeval seas of hundreds of millions of years ago. ...

"We're pushing the oceans back to the dawn of evolution," [Dr. Jeremy] Jackson [a marine ecologist and paleontologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla as well as a founding member of Shifting Baselines] said, "a half-billion years ago when the oceans were ruled by jellyfish and bacteria." ...

As their traditional catch declines, fishermen around the world now haul in 450,000 tons of jellyfish per year, more than twice as much as a decade ago.

This is a logical step in a process that Daniel Pauly, a fisheries scientist at the University of British Columbia, calls "fishing down the food web." Fishermen first went after the largest and most popular fish, such as tuna, swordfish, cod and grouper. When those stocks were depleted, they pursued other prey, often smaller and lower on the food chain.

"We are eating bait and moving on to jellyfish and plankton," Pauly said. ...

Pauly, 60, predicts that future generations will see nothing odd or unappetizing about a plateful of these gelatinous blobs.

And there you have it: fishing down the food chain -- just one example of shifting baselines. And something to think about over your next order of hagfish and chips.

Global Warming, Kids. Big Deal.

That's how I read it. See URL below:

http://epa.gov/globalwarming/kids/bigdeal.html

Plastics Redux

Yesterday, I posted an entry about the LA Times "Altered Ocean" series and the ultra-depressing article about the great gyres of plastic detritus swirling in the Pacific. Only fitting, then, that today I link to a much more cheerful article in USA Today about the mainstreaming of biodegradable plastics and featuring quotes from Sierra magazine's Paul Rauber.

The article, which specifically deals with disposable dinnerware, reports that, with stores like Sam's Club to Walgreens now selling the stuff, bio-plastics are starting to put a dent in what the paper says is a $30 billion global market for paper and plastic disposables. According to one expert, "Sales of eco-friendly plates, cups and cutlery could top $500 million in 2006 and $1 billion by 2008."

But the story may overreach slightly in stating that the biodegradable plastic "disappears in a compost pile as organic matter, water and carbon dioxide within 180 days." According to an excellent feature article by Elizabeth Royte in this month's Smithsonian, the truth is, alas, more complicated; that is to say, the plastic will degrade to organic matter, yes, but only in a "controlled composting environment." And what's that mean?

Not your backyard bin, pit or tumbling barrel. It's a large facility where compost--essentially, plant scraps being digested by microbes into fertilizer--reaches 140 degrees for ten consecutive days. So, yes, as PLA advocates say, corn plastic is "biodegradable." But in reality very few consumers have access to the sort of composting facilities that can make that happen.

How few? According to Royte's research, fewer than thirty facilities nationwide.

But I don't want to ruin the picnic for anyone. And neither does Royte. In the end, her article takes a measured but positive position. Biodegradable plastics may be problematic, sure, but as one of her sources urges, "let's not kill the good pursuituit of the perfect." Hear, hear.

For now, as Rauber tells USA Today, the green choice is still reusables.

Hot Enough For You?

From NASA's Earth Observatory: "This image shows the difference in land surface temperatures from July 12-19, 2006, compared to the average temperatures during that period for the past six years (2000-2005). ... Dark red shows areas where 2006 land surface temperatures were up to 10 degrees Celsius warmer than recent years."

Flotsam and Jetsam

Mr. McGuire: I just want to say one word to you - just one word.

Ben: Yes sir.

Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?

Ben: Yes I am.

Mr. McGuire: 'Plastics.'

Ben: Exactly how do you mean?

Mr. McGuire: There's a great future in plastics.
Think about it. Will you think about it?

Ben: Yes I will.

Mr. McGuire: Shh! Enough said. That's a deal.

Nearly 40 years after The Graduate hit movie theaters, the "great future" of plastic is here. We are awash in the stuff -- literally. The oceans have become a plastic graveyard. Which is precisely the subject of the latest installment in the Los Angeles Times 5-part series, "Altered Oceans."

Reporter Kenneth R. Weiss, who should get a Pulitzer for the series, describes for readers "a slowly rotating mass of trash-laden water about twice the size of Texas."

This is known as the Eastern Garbage Patch, part of a system of currents called the North Pacific subtropical gyre. Located halfway between San Francisco and Hawaii, the garbage patch is an area of slack winds and sluggish currents where flotsam collects from around the Pacific, much like foam piling up in the calm center of a hot tub.

About 80 percent of that flotsam comes from land, reports Weiss, and nearly 90 percent of it is plastic.

Think about it.

Will you think about it?

Deal.

Psst ... Pass It On

It's great to see our Cool Cities Campaign in Tom Paine.com's "Pass It On" slot. In case you're not yet familiar with it, Cool Cities is a campaign to further the goals of the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement.

Spearheaded by Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, the agreement fills the leadership vacuum created by Bush administration policies (or lack thereof) on global warming, by engaging municipalities across America in an effort to meet or exceed the emissions reductions targets stipulated under the Kyoto Protocol. As of July 28, 275 mayors representing nearly 50 million Americans have accepted the challenge.

Nickels, who has been called the "pied piper" of the climate cause, was recently awarded the Sierra Club's Edgar Wayburn Award, along with King County Executive Ron Sims. Named for the much-loved five-term former president of the Sierra Club, the Wayburn Award has traditionally been given to federal lawmakers. When it comes to tackling climate change, however, the real leadership is occurring outside the Beltway.

Sims is a prime example of that leadership. He has been urging Seattleites to take the problem seriously since 1988, when he first attempted to create a county-level office to study the localized effects of global warming. The Seattle Times mocked the effort, accusing the politician of spewing "hyperbolic clouds of rhetorical gas."

"The point is," the editorial continued, "that the sky-is-falling, icecaps-are-melting, oceans-are-rising rhetoric must be tempered by common sense." Last month, the paper ran an apology of sorts in an article headlined: "Global warming: They're not laughing at Ron Sims now."

Attention Urban Planners

Here's a timely story from NASA's Earth Observatory on combating the urban heat island effect. It seems researchers have found that "urban forestry and vegetation-covered roofs could lower city temperatures and even reduce the demand for air conditioning and the consumption of electricity." Read more in Beating the Heat in the World's Biggest Cities.

Alt.Fuels

As part of its 'Quest for Alternative Energy Sources,' the Christian Science Monitor runs down the contenders vying to replace gasoline as the primary fuel for transportation. As the paper notes, "The successful fuel not only has to be cheaper than gasoline, it has to be produced in huge quantities and survive future swings in gas prices. There's another potential hurdle: Environmentalists want alternatives with smaller greenhouse-gas emissions than gasoline." Yes indeed.

Estimated Prophet

According to a new report from the California EPA, average temperatures in the state could rise by anywhere between 3 and 10.5 degrees F in the Golden State by the end of this century, depending on whether or not greenhouse gas emissions are sharply curtailed or continue to grow. The report comes in the wake of a searing heat wave that baked most of the state, killing both people and livestock -- an event expected to become more commonplace in the future. As the San Francisco Chronicle's Jane Kay writes:

If industrial and vehicle emissions continue unabated, there could be up to 100 more days a year when temperatures hit 90 degrees or above in Los Angeles and 95 degrees or above in Sacramento, the report states. Both cities have about 20 days of such extreme heat now.

The report's good news: If emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are significantly curtailed, the number of extremely hot days might increase by only half those figures.

Even more troublesome than rising temperatures is the prognosis for the Sierra Nevada snowpack and the state's freshwater supply. Under the middle-of-the-road emissions scenario, the state stands to lose 70 to 80 percent of its snowpack by 2100 and 90 percent if nothing is done. As if that weren't bad enough, rising sea levels could swamp the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, from which Californians currently take two-thirds of their drinking water, with salt water.

The report was the first biennial assessment on climate change and its consequences for California as required under an executive order signed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The governor made international headlines today when he and British Prime Minister Tony Blair signed a pact aimed at reducing emissions by creating a market for carbon credits. That move was widely seen as a rebuke to the Bush Administration and its do-nothing approach on climate change. In a statement, Schwarzenegger said, "California will not wait for our federal government to take strong action on global warming."

If there's one thing the report makes clear, it's that waiting would be a grave mistake.

Collateral Damage

It is axiomatic that war is hell, not only in terms of its immediate toll on human lives but also in terms of the enormous and inevitable environmental damage it causes. With war raging in Lebanon and Israel, the United Nations Environment Programme has expressed "grave concern" about an Exxon Valdez-scale oil spill on the Lebanese coast. The spill resulted from Israeli bombing of the Jiyyeh power station and has spread across 50 miles of coastline, slicking beaches and threatening a variety of Mediterranean wildlife, including endangered green turtles, whose eggs hatch in the area in July.