Sí Se Puede

"The only way I know how to organize people is to talk to one person, then talk to another person, then talk to another person." And that's how Cesar Chavez did it, convincing individuals to stand up for their rights -- including environmental justice -- until he had a movement. As co-founder of the United Farm Workers, his answer to anyone who said it couldn't be done was a simple and straightforward, "Sí se puede." Yes it can.

Cesar Chavez was born to a farm family in Yuma, Arizona on March 31, 1927. In honor of his memory, California Congresswoman Hilda Solis introduced the Cesar Estrada Chavez Study Act to authorize the Department of Interior to study significant lands in Chavez’s life for possible inclusion in the National Park Service. A similar bill was introduced in the Senate by Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

The Sierra Club wholeheartedly supports the Solis/McCain proposal as well as an effort to make March 31 a national holiday. To quote the official Sierra Club letter endorsing the designation:

Cesar E. Chavez' courageous life has inspired many to continue the fight for environmental justice, so our children and families have a stronger, healthier future. Chavez' legacy, like that of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., continues to educate, inspire and empower people from all walks of life, and should be celebrated through the establishment of a federally recognized Cesar E. Chavez National Holiday.

Can it be done? Sí, hermanos, se puede!

Dump 2.0

Need some inspiration? Check out this short film about the recycling center in Raglan, New Zealand. Very cool.

Activismo!

From the people who brought you Mi Hombre No Necesita Huevos de Tortuga, presenting: El Hijo del Santo contra Los Enemigos del Mar.


Taking ocean degradation to the mat in Mexico.

Un espactaculo de lucha libre. Viva el Santo!

I think we need more campaigns like this one.

Capture, Store, Pray

If we, as a society, are intent on burning coal to generate electricity, (and it seems we are), then we had better get serious about capturing and sequestering the carbon dioxide emissions that result from coal combustion. Otherwise, we're cooked.

That, in a nutshell, is the message of this excellent Why Files article on the subject. At the moment, the technology is still in its infancy, and while coal boosters are happy to pay lip service to the idea, it's far from certain that it can work on the scale needed to curtail climate catastrophe. As it stands, not a single large power plant is currently injecting its CO2 underground. And even when all the projects now on the drawing board are fully operational (the first US carbon capture-capable generating facility, FutureGen, is still at least five years from completion), they will only account for a tiny fraction of total emissions. And even then, there's no ironclad guarantee the CO2 won't escape, perhaps even catastrophically.

The technical challenges are only part of the equation here. Policy may pose as great an obstacle as leaders are reluctant to apply the pressure necessary to overcome inertia. As Howard Herzog of MIT's Laboratory for Energy explains, the financial motivation to get serious about the technology is still sorely lacking. "The economic incentives are not there to have this start happening sooner. It will probably take a price signal [a carbon tax, a cap-and-trade system, or another mechanism to raise the cost of venting carbon dioxide] of $30 per ton of CO2. The chances of that happening in the United States before 10 years are not very high. So let's use that time to do some demonstrations, so we are ready to run."

Whether or not carbon sequestration proves workable remains to be seen, but we have to try. Says Martin Blunt of Imperial College London: "There is a growing realization that the world is facing a very serious problem, and you don't try to tackle a serious problem with only one technology. You try all the possible solutions, nuclear, renewable, efficiency, carbon capture and storage, and see which one works out. You will probably find that some of those solutions will be better than others, but until you have treated them all seriously, you will not know."

Out Ahead

Got twelve minutes? Check out this short film from Sea Studios Foundation about how businesses (big ones, like DuPont and Wal-Mart) are making bank by going green. Is it all just so much greenwashing? Or has eco-capitalism become the new name of the game? Watch the film and see what you think. Hat tip: Gristmill.

And while we're on the subject of eco-capitalism (just a word I pulled out of the air), check out Patagonia's new blog, The Cleanest Line.

Survey Says...

On the Scientific American blog, Christopher Mims highlights the finding in a recent Yale poll that, "Fully 83 percent of Americans now say global warming is a "serious" problem, up from 70 percent in 2004," and that 63 percent of Americans agree that the United States "is in as much danger from environmental hazards, such as air pollution and global warming, as it is from terrorists." It's worth noting that, in the same poll, 58 percent of respondents agreed with the statement, "As the Bible says, the world literally was created in six days." For real.

I'm not sure what to make of that, but it reminded me of a poll I read a couple years back that found that 75 percent of Americans couldn't name the vice president. It so happens, the same number believed in the literal existence of the Devil.

Coincidence?

That Elusive Sweet Spot

At Salon, Ira Boudway talks with author and Step It Up! leader Bill McKibben about Deep Economy, his book-length argument against the notion that economic growth should be the ultimate goal of societies and that more is always better. McKibben argues instead that we need to find the "sweet spot" that balances individual needs and desires against the demands of ecological sustainability.

A good interviewer, Boudway presses McKibben to be a little more specific. "What about what we're doing now?" He asks. "I contacted you through a P.R. person for Henry Holt, who is hoping to sell as many copies of your book as possible. Salon, in turn, is hoping to generate traffic based on your reputation as a writer, which would help drive ad sales and so on. Are we in the sweet spot?"

To see his answer, read the interview. It's worth noting, though, that the interview currently runs alongside an ad for the new Porsche Cayenne Turbo, which (I checked) gets about the same mileage as a Hummer H2. ... Definitely not in the sweet spot.

Love, American Style

As the Washington Post's editors remarked about just one aspect of the case, "It's the kind of story that seems to confirm everything people believe is sleazy about the way Washington works." I'm referring to the matter of one J. Stephen Griles, formerly the Number Two at the Department of the Interior under Secretary Gale Norton. From his first day in the Bush administration, Griles was a proverbial snake in the grass -- a guy with a dossier full of past ethics violations and talent for moving seamlessly between lobbying gigs for extractive industries to government appointments where he was to "regulate" those very same sectors.

Now finally, thanks to l'Affaire Abramoff (what a tangled web that is), Griles has been convicted on charges of obstructing justice, after he repeatedly lied to investigators about his romantic relationship with Italia Federici, one of Abramoff's closest associates. Unfortunately, as part of a plea agreement, Griles will get off easy -- a 10-month sentence, half of which will be served in "home confinement." Griles shares that home with his new girlfriend, one Sue Ellen Wooldridge, who earlier in the year resigned her position at the Justice Department. As the AP's John Heilprin reports,

Wooldridge, as the nation's environmental prosecutor, bought a $980,000 vacation home last year with Griles and Donald R. Duncan, the top Washington lobbyist for ConocoPhillips. Nine months later, she signed an agreement giving the company more time to clean up air pollution at some of its refineries.

Al in Wonderland

Wandering in the wood, Alice heard sawing and walked that way, hopeful of getting directions. Halfway up an oak, a hedgehog in a frock coat and silk hat was sawing off the limb it sat on.

"I say," she cried, "you ought to stop that!" The hedgehog looked at her but kept sawing.

"Why should I?" it snapped.

"You'll fall!"

"Why should I fall?" the hedgehog shouted, turning pink. "Explain!"

"When the limb you're sawing falls, you'll fall too," Alice replied, with, she thought, admirable conciseness.

"That's not an explanation," the hedgehog shouted, still sawing. "It's just proximate cause. You'll have to give ultimate cause!"

"I shall never get home for tea," Alice sighed.

That's author David Rains Wallace channeling Lewis Carroll. I imagine that, after his day on the Hill yesterday (low-lighted by Senator Inhofe's shameless performance, in which the Republican from Oklahoma himself turned a little pink), Al Gore must feel a bit like Alice.

On the Run

As I'm a little bit obsessed with this pattern of northward (and upward) migration of species -- a predictable consequence of a warming climate -- I was intrigued to hear Al Gore, in his Senate testimony, cite the case of the manatees appearing all along the eastern seaboard last summer, as far north as the Hudson River and Cape Cod. "Nature's on the run," Gore told the Senators. That will no doubt be seized by the naysayers as more hype from the Goracle. It's not. He's just paying attention.

What got me on this jag was this item in the Los Angeles Times about the start of sakura, the cherry blossom holiday, in Japan, which has been arriving earlier and earlier in the year -- eight days earlier than average this year. While the story focuses on how discomfiting the pattern is for the Japanese holidaymakers and the tourist industry, the more interesting and ominous thing is what it means for the animal kingdom. So, here's one more data point to support the contention that nature is on the move.

Nagasaki's swallowtail butterfly has been observed in northern Japan. At least 12 other butterfly species have migrated with the changes in temperature, according to scientists.

Where the butterflies go, the plants will follow...

Coal Shower

This item in today's Christian Science Monitor is as sobering a story as you're likely to read about the big picture on carbon emissions. What reporter Mark Clayton found is that:

• In the last five years, coal-fired power plants have been coming "online at a rate of better than two per week."
• The trend is accelerating, not slowing.
• While China, which has led the global coal boom, appears set to slow its expansion by 50 percent, the United States, India, and to a lesser extent, even some Kyoto signatories are ramping theirs up. Way up.

Clayton reports that the resulting emissions from the global coal binge will be greater than is currently projected under most climate models' business-as-usual assumptions.

The startling figures give greater urgency to the deployment of carbon sequestration technology that would capture emissions at the power plant, then pump them deep underground. Experts stress, however, that China and India are unlikely to sequester carbon emissions until the US does.

Alas, according to Dept. of Energy figures, the US is now planning to build more than 150 coal-fired power plants that do not capture or sequester emissions.

Slap and Tickle

I pulled this headline from the Science Times: Scientist Finds the Beginnings of Morality in Primate Behavior, Still Searching for It in Humans. (Sorry, couldn't resist). Also in the zoological news: Rat humor. Seems the little critters go in for slapstick and tickling. Then again, who doesn't?

The Tao of the Dirtbag

With Earth Day coming round again, magazines are rolling out their annual 'green issues.' Fortune 'goes green' in April. So does Outside. Interestingly, both glossies feature Arnold Schwarzenegger. But guess which one puts the Guvernator on the cover. That's right: Outside. In what seems like role reversal, Fortune leads with Patagonia founder and self-described dirtbag, Yvon Chouinard. Makes sense though. Chouinard has lately been on a crusade to change the way America does business. To flog his book Let My People Go Surfing, which is equal parts memoir and personal business philosophy, Chouinard skipped the bookstores. He went straight to the business schools instead. As the article by Susan Casey reports,

These days he's a standing-room-only ticket at Stanford and Harvard business schools. Yale, which awarded him an honorary doctorate in humane letters in 1995, recently offered him a fellowship to teach courses merging business with environmental studies. "I mean, can you imagine that?" he says, laughing. "I got a degree in auto mechanics at John Burroughs High School. But there's no surf in New Haven."

Spoken like a true dirtbag.

As a final note, big props to the Gristers for their inclusion in Outside's pages. But, c'mon dudes! Get them jeans dirty, would ya?

River Requiem

The claim, as related in this article in the Guardian today, that the world's great rivers face "catastrophic collapse" seems at first like rank hyperbole. But upon reflection, one of the United States' great rivers -- the Colorado -- no longer pours into the sea. Dammed at more than 30 points, it dies as a salty trickle in the Sonoran Desert before it can reach the Gulf of California. If that can happen in the most powerful country in the world, well... (Come to think of it, the Colorado meets its end in Mexico, so maybe that explains our lack of concern). Anyway, the Colorado isn't even on the WWF's list of the world's ten great threatened rivers.

Windbreaking Gobstoppers (for Cows)

German scientists say they have figured out a way to make cows produce more milk and less flatulence, but it's a tough pill to swallow -- literally. The pill, which breaks down methane -- a potent greenhouse gas -- in the cow's guts, is reportedly the size of a fist. Researchers say it needs to be that large so it will break down over months.

One Step Up, 20 Back

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has declared global warming a top priority for her six-month term as president of the European Union, which recently agreed on an ambitious and binding agreement to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 20 percent (from 1990 levels) by 2020. Sounds good, doesn't it? The problem is Germany alone is currently building, or planning to build, more than 20 coal-fired power plants. Uhh, Chancellor ...

On the Hill

Al Gore is slated to testify before Congress tomorrow -- twice. First at a joint hearing with Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Energy & Air Quality (9:30 AM EST), (the only other witness is the Danish statistician and global warming downplayer Bjorn Lomborg); then, in the afternoon (2:30 EST), Gore goes before the Environment and Public Works Committee where he will doubtless get a grilling from James "Warming is a Hoax" Inhofe. Ought to be interesting.

High Stakes

The parallels between the global warming 'debate' and the decades-long battle to establish the health risks of smoking should be obvious. On the one side, you have a preponderence of evidence showing a strong statistical link between tobacco and the rise of certain cancers. There is no absolute proof, mind you, but there is a broad consensus based on the weight of the scientific evidence.

Allan Brandt, a medical historian at Harvard, has written a history of the tobacco wars in his new book, "The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall and Deadly Persistence of the Product that Defined America." In it, he documents the fact that tobacco companies not only understood the health consequences of smoking, they actively manipulated their products to make them more addictive.

Dr. Brandt is no mere bystander in this history. In 2004, he served as the government's star witness in a federal racketeering case against Big Tobacco. Ultimately, the judge ruled against the industry, finding that it had engaged in a decades-long conspiracy to defraud its customers. Of being a party to the case, Brant says, "If one of us occasionally crosses the boundary between analysis and advocacy, so be it. The stakes are high, and there is much work to be done."

Paging Rachel Carson

Scientists have created a transgenic mosquito engineered for malaria-resistance. According to this report in the Houston Chronicle, lab tests have shown that the genetically modified mosquitoes "breed and compete more efficiently than natural mosquitoes, suggesting the modified, or transgenic, type could spread in the wild."

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, between 350 million and 500 million cases of malaria occur worldwide each year, killing more than 1 million people.

Scientists and public health officials have looked toward genetically modified mosquitoes because, with a ban on the pesticide DDT, they have few other options in the developing world for controlling mosquitoes and the diseases they spread.

This story and others like it beg the question: Is there a role for the judicious application of genetic engineering, or is the possibility of unforeseen consequences simply too risky to be acceptable? And if we reject both DDT and transgenic skeeters, then what?

Prevailing Attitudes

According to a new poll conducted by the Yale Center of Environmental Law and Policy's Environmental Attitudes and Behavior Project:

Fully 83 percent of Americans now say global warming is a “serious” problem, up from 70 percent in 2004. More Americans than ever say they have serious concerns about environmental threats, such as toxic soil and water (92 percent, up from 85 percent in 2004), deforestation (89 percent, up from 78 percent), air pollution (93 percent, up from 87 percent) and the extinction of wildlife (83 percent, up from 72 percent in 2005). Most dramatically, the survey of 1,000 adults nationwide shows that 63 percent of Americans agree that the United States “is in as much danger from environmental hazards, such as air pollution and global warming, as it is from terrorists.”

The Moral Malaise

The debate is over. The debate goes on. Arguing the global warming issue (issy-oo) on the Beeb. Listen to the latest edition of The Moral Maze.

Human Nature

As that old cynic and mass murderer Joe Stalin put it: One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic. That sad, simple truth about human nature may help to explain why the world doesn't do anything about, say, Darfur. Does it also explain the lack of meaningful action on global warming, which, by the way, is at the root of the Darfur genocide -- at least according to observers like Jared Diamond and Tim Flannery, as well as this recent article in the Atlantic? While most of the press paints the genocide in Sudan as ethnically motivated, many others argue that it's really a struggle between farmers and herders over increasingly scarce water and arable land.

Debating Points

On the Scientific American blog, George Musser and David Biello react to the NYC climate change debate (note: 79-page transcript now available). Biello observes that, behind the divisive rhetoric, there was consensus on at least two broad points: One, that global warming is a real and serious problem (granted, with disagreement as to how serious), and two, that it is primarily an energy issue.

As for Musser, he thinks the term "scientific consensus" is counterproductive in the climate debate. While a valid claim, (i.e., there really is a consensus), Musser argues that it means something different to scientists than it expresses to the public, and that trotting out the term too often rubs independent thinkers the wrong way, allows skeptics to claim they are being muzzled and makes the scientists invoking it come off as arrogant (even though they themselves see it as an expression of humility). He concludes:

Telling people that there is a consensus cannot substitute for explaining why there is a consensus. As much as climate scientists may be wearying of debate, they need to press onward and treat each question as though it was the first time they had ever heard it.

Surprise, Surprise

Species form faster in the Tropics, right? That's why there's so much biodiversity there. Wrong! A new study in Science shows that species actually form and die out fastest at the poles.

And, while we're at it, here's another surprise from the science news: The Amazon rainforest is actually greener in the dry season. Weird, eh? Stranger still, it seems the forest 'manufactures' the wet season by pumping moisture into the air. From the NASA news release:

The researchers report that the rain forests sprout new leaves in anticipation of the coming dry season. The greener forests capture more sunlight, absorb more carbon dioxide and evaporate more water during the dry season compared to the wet season, according to scientists. By gradually humidifying the atmosphere, the forests play an integral role in the onset of the wet season, scientists observed.

Debate This

Yesterday. Park Avenue. New York, NY. Sold out event. Two sides meet to debate ('Oxford-style') the assertion that "Global warming is not a crisis." Arguing in support of the statement: Michael Crichton, Richard Lindzen and Phillip Stott. Arguing against it: Brenda Ekwurzel, Gavin Schmidt, and Richard C.J. Somerville. Before the debate, a poll is taken among the spectators: the majority are against the 'motion.' That is, they believe global warming is indeed a crisis. Afterward, polling reveals a tide change. More people now think, 'No, it's not a crisis after all.' Huh, how did that happen? At Real Climate, Gavin Schmidt gives the post-game wrap-up, arguing that, in effect, entertainment and subterfuge trumped science. Then he asks: Are such debates even worthwhile?

Unfortunately, the audio of the debate is not yet available for download, but I have to say, (just this writer's opinion, not having yet heard the debate), Schmidt's reaction seems naive. Of course science doesn't win the day. Not because the science is wrong. Whether it's wrong or right is of utmost importance, but it's immaterial to the debate -- as immaterial as whether or not, in a courtroom, the man on trial is, in fact, innocent or guilty. Guilt or innocence after all is not a matter of objective truth. It is what the jury decides it is, based on two competing narratives. That's why you hire the best lawyer you can find, and not necessarily the most scrupulous one.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not arguing that scientists should comport themselves like lawyers. God no! Just that they should make greater allowance to political reality, especially when they have agreed to engage in a public debate. Reports Schmidt:

The organisers asked us afterwards whether we'd have done much different in hindsight. Looking back, the answer is mostly no. We are scientists, and we talk about science and we're not going start getting into questions of personal morality and wider political agendas - and obviously that put us at a sharp disadvantage....

The idea that a scientist cannot or should not get into "questions of personal morality" or "wider political agendas" strikes me as a conceit we can live without. It is like the myth of journalistic objectivity, when objectivity is not what we most want from journalists at all. What we want (what I want) is a reasonable inquiry and honest accounting in a manner that is well-told -- something which is served, not undermined, by showing one's cards.

As fate would have it, the same day the debate took place, the Guardian published this essay by Mark Hulme of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, in which he argues a very similar point; namely, that it's time for scientists to stop kidding themselves.

Too often with climate change, genuine and necessary debates about these wider social values - do we have confidence in technology; do we believe in collective action over private enterprise; do we believe we carry obligations to people invisible to us in geography and time? - masquerade as disputes about scientific truth and error.

...

The danger of a "normal" reading of science is that it assumes science can first find truth, then speak truth to power, and that truth-based policy will then follow. ... If the battle of science is won, then the war of values will be won.

If only climate change were such a phenomenon and if only science held such an ascendancy over our personal, social and political life and decisions. In fact, in order to make progress about how we manage climate change we have to take science off centre stage.

Hulme concludes (and I obviously agree):

If scientists want to remain listened to, to bear influence on policy, they must recognise the social limits of their truth seeking and reveal fully the values and beliefs they bring to their scientific activity.

Hulme calls this "post-normal" science, and perhaps it is, but it is not ahistorical. There are, after all, plenty of precedents for scientists revealing fully their values and beliefs. James Hansen. E.O. Wilson. Albert Einstein. To name a few.

Ag Trends, Part II

The drought Down Under, now in its seventh consecutive year, is spurring some Australian officials to urge farmers to shift their sights from the parched southlands to the savannas and billabongs of the rain-soaked north. With climate change, scientists are predicting things will go from bad to worse in the south, with the agrarian region getting 15 percent less precipitation. The northern frontier, meanwhile, is expected to get wetter. Many experts warn, however, that any northward shift would spell folly for a number of reasons: The northern rains are erratic, there's inadequate infrastructure, much of the land is of poor quality, and clearing would run up against parks and aboriginal lands. Given all these strikes against industrial agriculture, say critics, better to leave the savanna intact to sop up carbon dioxide. Alas, there's no money in that. (And you can't eat it).

Whaling Days

There's an interesting story about contemporary Japanese whaling in today's New York Times. Among other things, the story reveals that Japan's whale-hunting tradition is, in large part, an artifact of its relationship with America. Apparently, while there was some small-scale, traditional whaling in the Land of the Rising Sun prior to its 'opening' to the West, it wasn't until Commodore Perry's mission in the mid-1800s that it started launching far-reaching whaling expeditions in the manner of the American fleet. Even then, the eating of whale only became widespread after WWII, when US occupying forces encouraged the Japanese to consume more of it. Not so long after that, we decided they shouldn't.

The story may be of special interest to me for a couple of reasons: For one thing, I'm descended from whalers. Four great-uncles of mine were born aboard whaling vessels. For another, I lived in Japan briefly, teaching English there after college. I still remember the whale meat wrapped in cellophane at the grocery store and Japanese students who mocked us gaizin for our repulsion at the idea of it.

Turns out, however, that demand for whale meat is in steady decline in Japan, especially among the youth, who have to be enticed to choke it down by stewing the meat in ketchup or disguising it with sweet and sour sauce. So then, why does Japan go to such great lengths to defend its right to whale? "It’s not because Japanese want to eat whale meat," a Japanese policy researcher tells the Times. "It’s because they don’t like being told not to eat it by foreigners." Ahhh.

My own ancestors whaled until quite late in the game -- the last of the Cape Cod whalers. What killed the livelihood for them was not the collapse of whale populations or any moral repugnance at the idea of eating whale meat. Few Americans ever did. It was the oil they were primarily after, for lighting. As I understand it, what killed whaling in America was kerosene, which fed the gas lamps much more cheaply than did spermaceti. Which leaves me to wonder: If the rest of the world had been insisting that they stop killing the whales, would my ancestors have kept at it anyway, out of a mixture of spite and sheer Yankee cussedness? Hard to say for sure, but they might well have. Banzai!

Oscar Reversal

Somehow I missed this news: It seems the Supreme Court stripped Al Gore of his Oscar and awarded it to President Bush instead. Newsweek reports that the high court felt Bush was more deserving of the honor:

"It is true that Al Gore has done a lot of talking about global warming," wrote Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority. "But President Bush has actually helped create global warming."

Broadsides

Everybody is jumping all over William Broad's piece on Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth in today's New York Times -- and rightly so. The story, which aims to show that scientists are uncomfortable with Gore's movie for being alarmist, uses somewhat dubious sources to advance a rather lame thesis and gets most of its 'facts' -- which are scant to begin with -- wrong in the process. Here's the story. And some of the reaction:

• Carl Pope was early out of the gates this morning with this item in his blog, Taking the Initiative.
• David Roberts went crazy with it over at Grist.
• Also blogging at Grist, Andrew Dressler takes a stab.
• The authors at Real Climate, who had taken issue with Broad's reporting before, are sorely disappointed.
• Other commenters include: Tim Lambert at Deltoid; Chris Mooney at The Intersection; Tom Yulsman at Environmental Journalism Now; Sierra Student Coalition's Nathan Wyeth at It's Getting Hot in Here; and well, it goes on and on.

My only question, the thing I just can't fathom, is why Broad chose to write such a pathetic piece in the first place.

Damned if We Don't

Climate change is not the only problem associated with carbon dioxide emissions. C02 is also making the oceans more acidic.

A new study published in the Geophysical Research Letters, the journal of the American Geophysical Union, conludes that ocean pH is declining (that is, becoming more acidic) as the seas absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide. Some portion of that absorbed CO2 becomes carbonic acid, a corrosive agent that dissolves calcium carbonate, the basic building block of corals and seashells, including the shells of phytoplankton. Those plankton are not only the base of the ocean food chain, they also play an enormous role in climate regulation by removing carbon from the atmosphere.


The study further concluded that this acidifying trend will continue regardless of warming, a finding that throws a wrench in any geo-engineering schemes that might address warming without reducing atmospheric CO2. There's no getting around it. We have to reduce CO2 emissions.

Says Ken Caldeira, one of the study's authors: "Ocean acidification threatens all marine organisms that use calcium carbonate to make their shells. However even as the planet warms, our study shows that we can help the ecological balance in the oceans by curbing CO2 emissions now by using wind, solar, nuclear power, and other alternative energy sources."

Who's Who

Meet the members of the newly created Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.

Right Before Their Eyes

Never mind the computer models; climate change is happening fast enough for researchers to observe the processes in action -- everything from stranded, hungry polar bears to dying coral species and fast melting permafrost. As the Denver Post's Katy Human reports, it's not making the job any easier.

Ag Trends

The early effects of the biofuels boom are being felt. Reuters reports that corn prices have doubled since last fall, a jump pegged to increased ethanol demand. That, in turn, has meant a sharp decline in beef and broiler chickens due to high feed prices. Most observers expect that, as more American farmers grow corn in response to higher prices, soy acreage in the U.S. will diminish, with the difference made up in Brazil and Argentina. Increased soy production in South America is likely to mean more clearing of the huge upland savannah and Amazon rainforest, with crops pushing cattle herds deeper into forested areas. Amazon deforestation has declined from near-record rates in the last couple years, but many experts worry the destruction will track with soy prices, which are once again on the rise.

Deny, Deny, Deny

Reading "The Denialists," the excellent article by Michael Specter in the latest New Yorker, I was struck by the parallels between those who argue that HIV does not cause AIDS (the subject of Specter's piece, which is not currently available online) and those who argue that anthropogenic carbon dioxide does not cause global warming.

As with the global warming 'skeptics,' those in the 'AIDS dissident movement' see themselves as honest intellectuals who have been unfairly branded as heretics by the scientific 'establishment.' Like their counterparts on the climate question, they are a tiny but vocal minority who insist that consensus is not truth and that their opponents have merely followed the funding -- in this case from the all-powerful drug companies -- in arriving at their positions. The parallels go on. The deniers (loaded term, I know, but there it is), say that even if HIV does cause AIDS, the treatment is worse than the disease. Likewise, many warming skeptics argue that cutting CO2 emissions will wreak worse havoc than warming itself.

In South Africa, AIDS denialism has enjoyed official government support just as global warming denialism has in our own country. The South African position is explained in large part by a nativist philosophy combined with a deep-seated distrust of Western science. The Bush Administration's climate position shares this profound disdain for science, at least, and perhaps also a faith in what it deems to be traditional values. In South Africa, meanwhile, people are dying of AIDS at the appalling rate of 900-1,000/day.

In the United States, no one is yet dying from government inaction or intransigence, but the human costs of our official denial could quickly surpass anything associated with HIV. Given our history and position in the world, that is more than just appalling. It's criminal.

Bases Loaded

Icy Blue

The March/April edition of Sierra takes readers on some wild journeys. Among them: Stalking wild boar in Hawaii with Daniel Duane; exploring Greenland's vanishing beauty with Edward Readiker-Henderson; and hiking around the country with Sierra Club Outings leaders. All that, plus the usual mainstays, including advice from our own Mr. Green and a Marilyn Berlin Snell profile -- this one about Planetwalker John Francis. Subscription to award-winning Sierra is just one of the many benefits of joining the Sierra Club.

Ain't No Party, Ain't No Disco

Addressing a conference on global warming, Ban Ki Moon, the new Secretary General of the United Nations, told attendees: "The majority of the UN's work still focuses on preventing and ending conflict. But the danger posed by war to all of humanity — and to our planet — is at least matched by the climate crisis and global warming."

That Ban Ki Moon does not have a reputation for outspokenness makes his statement all the more notable. But it is not a new idea, even in diplomatic circles. Sir David King, Britain's top science adviser, was widely criticized a few years ago when he posited that global warming was man's greatest challenge and a far bigger threat to humanity than terrorism. And Al Gore has repeatedly suggested that confronting global warming is, in the words of William James, "the moral equivalent of war." For James, of course, the great cause was the "war against war," which he warned would be "no holiday excursion or camping party." Ditto this one.

Go Gently...

... into that good night ... in a wicker coffin.

CTL! WTF?

When President Bush delivered his last State of the Union address he called for domestic production of 35 billion gallons of "alternative fuel" by 2017 -- not renewable, mind you, but alternative, a word choice that signalled the rise of coal-to-liquid (CTL) technology that aims to put coal in America's gas tanks. Because the US has beaucoup coal, the idea appeals broadly to those worried about reliance on oil. But to anyone concerned about global warming -- and that should be everyone -- the move represents one giant step closer to the brink. That's because CTL would put twice as much carbon into the atmosphere as petroleum fuels.

While the industry claims that sequestration technology would take care of the problem, according to this report in the Christian Science Monitor, none of the plants slated to come on line in the next few years have any near-term plans for carbon capture and underground storage. Furthermore, even if the C02 emissions from the manufacturing process were captured and sequestered, combustion of the resulting fuel would still put more CO2 into the atmosphere than gasoline would. As a final insult, analysts say CTL plants would not be profitable without considerable subsidies. Despite these drawbacks, CTL enjoys bipartisan support in government.

Leave it to Beavers

After an absence of some 200 years, beavers have returned to New York! (City, that is).

Check out these images from the Bronx River.

Demon on Wheels

Not since Speed Racer revved the powerful Mach 5 has there been anything in the racing world to compare with ... Myearthdream???? Okay, maybe Honda doesn't actually call its new Formula One machines by that name, but I think they missed a chance to come up with something good. Something like, I dunno, The Blue Marvel or The Formula E or, I've got it! The Green Racer!

No, it doesn't run on hydrogen or cellulosic ethanol or supercooled swamp gas or anything like that. It's a full-on hi-octane petrol-sucking racing machine, but without any corporate logos and instead covered with "a beautiful piece of artwork highlighting our planet Earth." But here's a further wrinkle. That Earth image is made up of 600,000 pixels (times 2 cars, so figure 1.2 million pixels), each of which will carry the name (in microscopic type) of folks (well, kids presumably) who have pledged to make some small energy-saving lifestyle change.

Cynics (guilty as charged) point to the inherent contradictions in all this. I mean, come off it: Greening the F1 seems even more specious than greening Hollywood. And yet, the governing body says it's "carbon-neutral" thanks to carbon credits purchased by the International Automobile Federation to fund reforestation in Chiapas. Furthermore, they say, they have the potential to change the hearts and minds of millions of race fans.

Perhaps. As I said in some earlier post, too bad we can't run our machines on irony or cognitive dissonance. Then, we'd never run out of energy.

Perfect Weather for a Streamlined World

Yesterday was the official launch of the International Polar Year, a massive scientific effort to study the polar regions at a time when they are undergoing rapid and dramatic change. You can follow the progress on the IPY site, as researchers blog from both poles.

Interestingly, this isn't the first IPY, but the fourth. The first occured in 1882-3 and was followed by updated efforts in 1932-3, and 1957-8. According to the Wikipedia entry, "by most accounts, the privations of these two early operations were extreme, with the men spending less than 10 percent of their time on science, and the rest of the time devoted to survival." That sounds about right.

The 1957-58 IPY was broadened in scope to encompass the entire globe and was thus renamed the International Geophysical Year (IGY). It places me historically (and perhaps also academically) to admit that I know the event only through pop music -- specifically, Donald Fagen's oh-so-shmoove and jazzy, "I.G.Y.", the 1980 hit in which the Steely Dan vocalist sends up his childhood optimism (he was 10 in '57) about a world where a technological Utopia seemed to loom on the horizon ("by '76 we'll be A.O.K.") and a kid in America could envision a world run by beneficent computers; "a just machine to make big decisions / Programmed by fellas with compassion and vision."

And then there's this bit, from which I took the title of the post: "Here at home we'll play in the city / Powered by the sun /Perfect weather for a streamlined world / There'll be spandex jackets, one for everyone."

Alpine Absurdity

I noticed this in a Reuters item headlined, "Germans Experience Warmest Winter on Record":

In the German Alpine resort of Garmisch, organisers of the World Cup skiing race had to import 2,000 cubic metres of snow from Austria on 30 trucks at a cost of 50,000 euros (US$66,080).

Uh, never mind the cost in euros or dollars; what about the many tons of CO2 involved in transporting all that snow?

Of course, we would never do anything like that here. Not in a cool city like San Francisco. No way. Never.