The Conservation Report

Thanks to new science, the role of water vapor (H₂O) in climate change is increasingly becoming clearer. From ScienceDaily:

“Everyone agrees that if you add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, then warming will result,” Dessler said. “So the real question is, how much warming?”

The answer can be found by estimating the magnitude of water vapor feedback. Increasing water vapor leads to warmer temperatures, which causes more water vapor to be absorbed into the air. Warming and water absorption increase in a spiraling cycle.

Water vapor feedback can also amplify the warming effect of other greenhouse gases, such that the warming brought about by increased carbon dioxide allows more water vapor to enter the atmosphere.

“The difference in an atmosphere with a strong water vapor feedback and one with a weak feedback is enormous,” Dessler said.

Climate models have estimated the strength of water vapor feedback, but until now the record of water vapor data was not sophisticated enough to provide a comprehensive view of at how water vapor responds to changes in Earth’s surface temperature. That’s because instruments on the ground and previous space-based could not measure water vapor at all altitudes in Earth’s troposphere — the layer of the atmosphere that extends from Earth’s surface to about 10 miles in altitude.

[Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS)] is the first instrument to distinguish differences in the amount of water vapor at all altitudes within the troposphere. Using data from AIRS, the team observed how atmospheric water vapor reacted to shifts in surface temperatures between 2003 and 2008. By determining how humidity changed with surface temperature, the team could compute the average global strength of the water vapor feedback

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Andrew Sullivan believes that Ronald Bailey has exposed a food miles farce, but you can’t compare bananas to apples without considering the reality of unsustainable consumption and the unsustainability of industrial agriculture.

Bailey argues that using food miles—the distance food travels to get to your plate—as a factor for sustainability isn’t realistic. He gives several examples in an attempt to discredit the food miles argument, but these examples aren’t strong enough to discredit the argument. For example, he cited a study that found the “cold storage of British apples produced more carbon dioxide than shipping New Zealand apples by sea to London.” However in many parts of the world like Michigan, it is certainly unsustainable to purchase apples from a Michigan supermarket that came from New Zealand when locally grown organic Michigan apples can be purchased in a local Michigan farmer’s market. Furthermore, the energy or fuel used to transport New Zealand apples to Michigan is very high.

I understand what Bailey is trying to argue, but he isn’t considering all the factors. For example, he argues “It is possible to grow bananas in Iceland, but Costa Rica really has the better climate for that activity.” Certainly, bananas should be purchased and transported from the best place possible, but there are other factors in addition to climate or suitability that should be taken into consideration when determining the best place possible such as distance, infrastructure used to produce the food, fuel costs, in addition to the impact on the local environment and markets.

I don’t believe consumers shopping locally in Michigan expect to buy bananas grown in Michigan, but if the closest and best place is Costa Rica, then Costa Rica is reasonable. On the other hand, I believe that some consumers have a problem with purchasing apples from New Zealand or blueberries from Chile, when the same produce can be purchased locally.  To my knowledge, New Zealand apples don’t offer anything substantially different than apples grown in the United States, so purchasing apples grown in New Zealand seems silly or unreasonable.  Furthermore, if consumers known as locavores decide to purchase produce from within a 50- or 100-miles radius, then that’s their choice, and their choice saves a lot of energy.

Ultimately, I believe Bailey’s assessment is lacking because it seeks to discredit the food miles argument when the food miles factor is still a very important factor in determining sustainability. He says, “Food miles advocates fail to grasp the simple idea that food should be grown where it is most economically advantageous to do so,” but he fails to take into consideration rising fuel consumption and rising fuel prices. More than ever, it is important to conserve resources where possible. Furthermore, climate change policy is seeking to cut out unnecessary carbon where it exists.

Personally, I believe the consumer has a moral responsibility to purchase food packaged in materials that can be recycled or food that can be locally or organically grown in order to force industry to make more sustainable decisions. Of course, not all people have the luxury of making sustainable decisions because they may not have the knowledge or resources to do so, but many Americans are in the position to make better choices to some degree, and there are several ways to contribute to sustainability. For example, you can: (1) focus on purchasing produce grown within a 100-mile radius, (2) commit to purchasing a portion of your food from a local farmer’s market during the summer, (3) make a good faith attempt to purchase sustainable seafood, (4) commit to some type of vegetarianism, or (5) purchase food that comes in reduced and recyclable packaging. I agree with Marc at In One Ear… Out the Other:

Yet despite the versatility of such crops, we still rely on far away industrialized agriculture to provide most of our diet, and the reason is that the historically low price of fuel has allowed us to concentrate and specialize our agriculture to certain regions. Most of our cereals in this country are produced in the plains states, our vegetables in California and poultry and pork to the South, and those products are then shipped across the country from those locations because of the benefit of cheap fuel. The system reinforces itself too, cheap Plains states cereals are shipped to the South to feed chickens. Guano is collected from Southern chicken farms and used for fertilizers out West, and etc.. The system works and works well, economically speaking, to the extent that we have cheap fuels for transportation.

Cheap fuels, however, are not likely to continue to be a reality. Grains grown in South Dakota fall at the same latitude and growing season as grains to be grown in New York, yet most New Yorkers still rely on Western grains. To drive through Western New York and it becomes immediately evident that those crops can and are grown successfully there; there are fields and fields of corn, yet hardly any are intended for human consumption. The majority is “field corn” or corn grown to supplement cow feed for local dairy production. However, besides for the economics of cheap fuel, there is no real reason not to diversify.

So while carbon emissions from food transport may represent a small part of overall emissions, its important to the extent that its an unsustainable and soon to be economically irrelevant portion. Also, when we’re talking about reducing carbon emissions globally by a certain date by 10%, 20%, 40% - that 1% becomes all the more significant.

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AGRICULTURE: SCIENTIST AT WORK | NORMAN T. UPHOFF: Food Revolution That Starts With Rice

ANIMAL WELFARE: Boy fed zoo reptiles to crocodile: A seven-year-old boy has been filmed going on the rampage at a popular zoo in Australia, killing rare reptiles and feeding live ones to a crocodile

ARCTIC MELTING: Arctic Ice in “Death Spiral,” Is Near Record Low

AUTO INDUSTRY: No “Revolting” the Volt: Chevy Battery Does Not Recharge While Driving

BUSHMEAT: Bush-Meat Ban Would Devastate Africa’s Animals, Poor?

CARBON: Heat Hinders Ground’s Ability to Absorb CO2

E-WASTE: 7 Hurdles to Electronics Recycling

ELECTRIC VEHICLES: 19 Electric Car Players Pitch San Francisco, 30 electric cars companies ready to take over the road, China Planning Electric Vehicle Charging Stations

ENERGY: Researchers Developing the “Internet for Energy”, New Energy Project Will Be Even Larger than the Pickens Plan: Move over, T. Boone Pickens. You’re about to be overshadowed by Babcock and Brown

ENDANGERED SPECIES: Croc Hunter’s ‘Bum-Breathing’ Turtle Faces Extinction

EVOLUTION: Scientists Discover Fish in Act of Evolution in Africa’s Greatest Lake, From the Onion: Dolphins Evolve Opposable Thumbs ‘Oh, Shit,’ Says Humanity

FUEL CELLS: First Fuel Cell-Powered Plane Presented in Germany

GOOGLE: Google search finds seafaring solution

GREEN CONSTRUCTION: 15 Inspiring Glimpses into the Future of Green Housing, The First LEED Platinum Skyscraper Nearly Completed, Lost middle-class tribe’s ’secret’ eco-village in Wales spotted in aerial photograph taken by plane, Paint it white: Cool roofs save cash and carbon, New experimental homes will heat themselves

HIV/AIDS: Colonial clue to the rise of HIV: The arrival of colonial cities in sub-Saharan Africa at the dawn of the 20th Century may have sparked the spread of HIV

HYBRID TECHNOLOGY: Honda Takes on the Hybrid Motorcycle, Mercedes-Benz S400 BlueHYBRID unveiled

HYDROGEN FUEL: Scientists Reach Hydrogen Storage Milestone

INVASIVE SPECIES: State wildlife commission seeks tougher rules for owning pet snakes, Stop slithering intruders: Asian swamp eels are an invasive foreign species that is dangerously prolific and adaptive, threatening fish and other native creatures

NATURAL GAS-POWERED VEHICLES: Pickens Overlooks Existing Natural Gas Cars in Energy Plan: Reality Check

NEW SPECIES: New Iguana Species Revealed

OFFSHORE WIND POWER: Huge Offshore Wind Farm Wins Approval, Offshore Wind To Supply 15% of Rhode Island Electricity

PHEV: Plug-In Hybrids Aren’t Coming — They’re Here, Houses passes bill with $5k Volt tax-credit, mandatory alternative fuel pumps

PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION: California’s 220 MPH High-Speed Train Will Be Emissions-Free

RECOMMENDED IMAGE(S): Earth From Above comes to NYC, Yup, still a pig, Monk Seal

RECOMMENDED MAP: USA National Gas Temperature Map

RECOMMENDED YOUTUBE: SOUTH CENTRAL FARM - PART 1, The End of Suburbia - 52 minute documentary on oil, McCain’s YouTube Problem Just Became a Nightmare, Sarah Palin Gibberish

REDISCOVERED SPECIES: Rare Plant Thought Extinct Re-discovered in Upstate New York

SCIENCE: Sciencedebate2008: Presidential answers to the top 14 science questions facing America, Japanese Scientists Plan to Build Space Elevator

WASTE-TO-ENERGY: Indiana will get $227 million waste to fuel plant

WATER AVAILABILITY: When Will Los Angeles Run Out of Water? Sooner Than You Think, Cactus Goo Makes Water Safe: The slimy ooze inside prickly pear cactuses that helps the plants store water in the desert can also be used for scouring arsenic, bacteria and cloudiness out of rural drinking water, according to research at the University of South Florida in Tampa

WATER CONSERVATION: Harvesting Rainwater by Not Letting It Go to Waste

WTF?: Cheney: Wildlife Conservation Has Been A ‘High Priority’ Of Bush Administration

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK: Yellowstone seeks to balance nature, cell phones, Judge refuses to let snowmobiles roam Yellowstone

ZOONOTIC DISEASES: Hamsters, Exotic Pets May Put Young Children At Risk, Doctors Say

Calculate you carbon footprint here.

See more green graffiti

Priceless.

I really like Al Gore. He is brave, and I am a fan of his voracity to tackle climate change and our energy problems. Recently, he called for 100% of our electricity needs to come from truly clean and carbon-free sources by 2018. As a result, shock and awe ensured, but he did exactly what he needed to do, which was stir a debate.

On the Net: Al Gore’s speech given at the D.A.R. Constitutional Hall: A Generational Challenge to Repower America

BIODIVERSITY: More bird species means fewer West Nile cases

BIOFUELS: Secret report: biofuel caused food crisis: Internal World Bank study delivers blow to plant energy drive

CANARY IN THE COAL MINE: Penguin woes signal trouble at sea

CARBON: NYC to spend billions to cut greenhouse gases

CLIMATE CHANGE: Welcome to the climate insecurity generation, Grasslands hold up to climate change, California plants squeezed by climate change

CONSERVATION: Nature reserves attract humans, but at a cost to biodiversity, Nature 2.0: Redefining conservation

DAMS: Aral Sea revived by dam

ENERGY POLICY: American energy policy, asleep at the spigot

EXTINCTION: Orang-utans ‘on fast track to extinction’

FISHERIES: Lobsters, crabs, squid, and other invertebrates are becoming more common while populations of bottom-feeding fish are plummeting, according to a long-term trawling study of Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay

FOOD: Ugly veggies to ease food crisis?, Taking bite out of banana mess

FUEL ECONOMY: Even modest increases in MPG can equal big gas savings

FUEL PRICES: NYC taxi drivers demand $1 fuel surcharge: Bloomberg Administration opposes idea; union threatens its own unspecified opposition

G8 SUMMIT: Environmentalists unhappy with G8 emissions goal, Environmentalists dismiss G-8 emissions target, Summit that’s hard to swallow - world leaders enjoy 18-course banquet as they discuss how to solve global food crisis

GLOBAL WARMING: Penguin chicks frozen by global warming?, Blocking sun not feasible warming solution

GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS: NYC to spend billions to cut greenhouse gases

HEALTH: Mississippi is the fattest state in the Union

INVASIVE SPECIES: Penguins strangled by invasive grass

MADAGASCAR: Madagascar hopes tourism saves ‘Noah’s Ark’

SCIENCE: Extreme rain grows mountains, Ancient ice sheets fell like dominoes

SOLAR: NanoMarkets predicts thin-film solar cell industry will produce more than 26 gigawatts by 2015, Meet the steel-melting solar mirror

WATER POLLUTION: Olympic sailors facing polluted waters

WILDFIRES: California grid urges conservation amid heat and fires, With resources tight, Californians take on wildfires themselves

WIND POWER: Oil billionaire Pickens puts his money on wind power

WTF?:: Restaurant: Man who died had ordered crab meat: No criminal charges will be filed, but investigators have suggested a mistake occurred

The debate over the effectiveness of organic farming at mitigating climate change is currently being argued. Some argue that conventional or more mechanized methods of agriculture are easier on the planet while others urge that the expansion of organic farming is needed to mitigate impacts of warming. I believe that more organic farming is needed. However, the definition of organic farming whether applied to small or large-scale organic farms needs to be heavy on methods that promote efficiency and sustainability.

Permaculture is a farming methodology (or way of living really) that promotes efficiency by maximizing the use of all available resources in a sustainable manner. The goal is to produce as much as possible without relying on input or very little input into the overall system.

Furthermore, organic farming is a skill. Organic farming methods that were once used centuries before were largely forgotten in mainstream culture once industrial farming took over. Essentially, to be efficient, Americans must relearn farming and not rely on Wal-Mart or Home Depot to purchase bagged soil, chemical fertilizers, or pesticides.

I believe the organic argument (especially how it is presented by the media) parallels the biofuel debate. Many folks believe that biofuels are bad for the planet because of the press. In the beginning the press demonized biofuels in its headlines.

However, not all biofuels are bad for the planet in terms of contributing to climate change or rise in food prices. Essentially biofuels that are made from sugars and starches or the foodstuff can be inefficient. However, cellulosic biofuels utilize the nonfood parts of the plant to produce biofuels so the starches and sugars are not used to produce ethanol. Essentially this is a much more efficient use of the land especially when methods of selective harvesting or applying elements of permaculture. Of course, this excludes cutting down rainforests for palm oil productions. Such land use is reckless because the method does not maximize carbon sequestering, destroys biodiversity and if the land becomes unproductive, it will possibly loose any ability to sequester carbon.

Certainly, large-scale organic farming must be scrutinized. For example, purchasing Michigan apples produced by mechanized agriculture is arguably superior to organic apples purchased in a Michigan supermarket that were grown in New Zealand. However, small-scale organic farming or even large-scale methods that employ elements of permaculture could actually provide more work than conventional agriculture. Furthermore organic farming should not rely on chemical fertilizers that are petroleum based, antibiotics, and hormones (or very limitedly) thereby reducing the impact these substances have on the environment and our own health.

Furthermore, soil associated with organic farming is also healthier and can produce more than conventional agriculture that weakens the soil structure therefore making conventional farming susceptible to droughts and erosion. The press can sometimes lack a holistic analysis of situations involving environmental degradation.

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On the Net: Rodale’s LaSalle urges expansion of organic farming to mitigate impacts of warming
On the Net: Surprise! Conventional Agriculture Can Be Easier on the Planet

I do not believe it is good policy to lower fuel prices. With help from the markets Americans will adapt. However, governments must be proactive and provide relief by making wise policy decisions that address the problem(s) and not exacerbate them.

Oil is a nonrenewable resource that will not remain in large quantities or easily accessible forever so the future price of diesel or gas could theoretically be almost any amount. Although current high gas prices hurt Americans, the lessons learned are priceless. Changes in behavior that promote conservation or obtaining energy from renewable or alternative sources will benefit our country in the future. Our children should inherit a proud landscape and not more problems. From The Weekly Standard:

The right question would have been, “Is it good policy to lower gasoline prices?” The right answer is “no.”

Higher prices seem to be persuading Americans to use less gasoline, witness the increased use of mass transit reported in many cities around the country. Lower gasoline prices would encourage Americans to drive more, use more of the cheaper gasoline, emit more pollutants, and increase the demand for crude oil. So regimes hostile to the United States would sell us still more oil. Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, whose government owns some 8,000 Citgo gasoline stations in America, must be astonished to learn that leading American politicians are eager to increase his revenues so that he can step up his propaganda campaign against America. And the Saudi financiers of jihadists and of the Wahabbi mullahs who fuel anti-Americanism would be pleased to have a few extra hundred million. So would Vladimir Putin. Better that, figure our politicians, than to take the political risk of increasing taxes on gasoline, reducing demand, and getting to the consumers’ wallets before OPEC and its allies do.

People will behave altruistically towards the environment if given the tools to do so. Education, infrastructure and resources are key elements in fighting environmental degradation. Additionally, environmental buzzwords or ideas like “carbon footprint” and “carbon neutrality” serve as tools that help bring abstract or intangible ideas like environmental degradation and global warming into perspective. Recently these buzzwords were voluntarily put into action in a few fishing tournaments across Florida.

Some recreational fishing tournaments have taken steps to reduce their impact on the environment by practicing catch and release, raising money for charities, carpooling to tournaments and fishing with kayak. Kayaks go where motorboats cannot and there is no rumbling or smoky outboard motor burning fossil fuel. The sounds of nature are clear and animals do not flee from the onslaught of an approaching motorboat. Kayaks are manatee friendly too. Manatees die from interactions with boat propellers or suffer from lacerations via accidental and negligent encounters. From the Tallahassee Democrat:

“Kayak fishermen have been fishing green for a very long time and the tradition has grown exponentially over the last few years with the advent of the sit-on-top kayak,” Suber said. “In addition to the recreational fishing, local and regional tournaments have been formed that are also designed in a green format.”

Suber said they compete in a Catch-Photo-Release tournament for charity, where fish are caught, measured and released to the same habitat where they were caught. All competitors are in human-powered paddle boats and fish with hook-and-line methods and artificial or natural bait.

Recently kayakers car-pooled from as far away as Wisconsin, New Jersey and Virginia to compete with anglers from Alabama, Georgia and Florida in the Forgotten Coast region located below Tallahassee.

Certainly, kayaks work as a great alternative to motorboats for freshwater and coastal shallow water fishing but what about deep-water ocean fishing? Recently, Miami hosted the world’s first fishing tournament that offset around 200 tons of carbon dioxide emissions by investing in green technology that captures methane gas, which is converted into electricity. The tournament was even co-sponsored by Environmental Defense. Resource users and environmentalists can work together to solve complex environmental problems. From Environment News Service:

The tournament is offsetting an estimated 200 tons of carbon dioxide emissions through AgCert, which will use the funds for an East Coast methane capture project. Methane gas from dairy farms will be converted into electricity, balancing out the tournament’s greenhouse gas impact on the environment.

Environmental Defense, a co-sponsor of the tournament, wants to make sure the tournament’s carbon neutral message resonates with Florida anglers. The group has launched the Green Button Project, which offers anglers the chance to buy climate mitigation credits when they fuel their boats.

“We hope that someday every motor runs on clean, renewable energy, but until then we’re doing what we can to help boaters connect the dots and cut their own carbon footprint,” said Jerry Karnas, Florida Climate Project director for Environmental Defense.

These anglers are practicing voluntary regulation. People need education sans propaganda and successful environmental education programs translate into voluntary regulation. Individuals and groups act faster to solve environmental problems than governments. Changing behavior voluntarily is often a better way to achieve environmental goals because the government is encumbered by ideologies, lobbyists, special interests and the struggle to enact on environmental degradation that often seems too complex and hard to grasp since our political and technological society often overshadows indicators in nature until it is too late.

The fact that individuals and groups are making efforts shows that environmental education is working. Getting people to think about how they live and how their choices impact the environment will lead to altruistic behavior that is beneficial to the environment. However, changing consumer habits is just a piece of the puzzle and more must be done to fight population increase and our reliance on nonrenewable energy. Otherwise, all the gains will continue to be lost generation after generation or to a new and ever growing hungry population.

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IMAGE from The Vulcan Project

According to The Vulcan Project, which aims to quantify North American fossil fuel carbon pollution, the Southeast of the United States spews as much carbon pollution as the Northeastern area. From The Daily Dish and Wired:

The work, known as The Vulcan Project, has already yielded a significant discovery: Previous CO2 estimates that used population as a proxy for emissions overestimated the Northeast’s greenhouse-gas generation, while underestimating the coal-heavy Southeast’s contribution.

Now, given the opposition of the Southeast’s congressional delegations to climate-change action, I’d like to see the new emissions map matched up with House and Senate districts.

On the Net: The Vulcan Project

Jeffrey D. Sachs who is the head of the Earth Institute argues for aggressive and new technologies to mitigate carbon. From the New York Times:

The economist Jeffrey D. Sachs, head of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, stated the case bluntly in a recent article in Scientific American: “Even with a cutback in wasteful energy spending, our current technologies cannot support both a decline in carbon dioxide emissions and an expanding global economy. If we try to restrain emissions without a fundamentally new set of technologies, we will end up stifling economic growth, including the development prospects for billions of people.” 

What is needed, Mr. Sachs and others say, is the development of radically advanced low-carbon technologies, which they say will only come about with greatly increased spending by determined governments on what has so far been an anemic commitment to research and development. A Manhattan-like Project, so to speak.

And time is critical, they say, as China, India and other developing nations march headlong into the modern world of cars and electric consumption on their way to becoming the dominant producer of greenhouse gases for decades to come. Indeed, China is building, on average, one large coal-burning power plant a week.

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IMAGES contrast normal energy use with reduced energy use associated with WWF’s “Earth Hour” event. Image at top by Paul Miller/AP Photo and at right by Mark Baker/AP Photo

Sydney along with other cities around the world dimmed the lights in a symbolic event to recognize climate change and how working together humanity can remedy the problem through cooperation. The event is known as “Earth Hour” and is organized via the World Wildlife Fund. The event is simply a beautiful idea. From the World Wildlife Fund:

Earth Hour is a global event created to symbolize that each one of us, working together, can make a positive impact on climate change - no matter who we are or where we live.

Created by WWF in Sydney, Australia in 2007, Earth Hour has grown from a single event into a global movement. In 2008, millions of people, businesses, governments and civic organizations in nearly 200 cities around the globe will turn out for Earth Hour. More than 35 US cities will participate, including the US flagships–Atlanta, Chicago, Phoenix and San Francisco.

Earth Hour brings together communities, local governments, corporate and nongovernmental organizations to heighten awareness about climate change and to inspire our nation to take practical actions to reduce their own carbon footprints.

Earth Hour: March 29, 2008 8 - 9 PM

Cities around the world will join together in literally turning off the lights for one hour to offer leadership and symbolize their commitment to finding climate change solutions.

Lights will be turned off at iconic buildings and national landmarks from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Local businesses and restaurants will also be asked to turn off their lights.

People at home can take advantage of the hour by replacing their standard light bulbs with energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs.

“This is the perfect opportunity for individuals, governments, businesses and communities around the world to unite for a common purpose, in response to a global issue that affect us all.”
- Carter S. Roberts, President and CEO WWF

Image Found Here
Image Found Here

To see how the math is worked out and for a high school physical chemistry review of converting mass to moles and Avogadro’s number visit Scientific American:

Actual weight ratios will of course vary, since gasoline is not purely octane. In general, however, when you burn carbon fuels they are in “reduced” form, that is, the carbons in the molecules are attached mostly to hydrogen atoms. When they are burned, the carbon becomes “oxidized” (literally, combined with oxygen) to make CO2. Since oxygen is far heavier than hydrogen, the product is heavier than what is burned.

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Hat tip to Kevin.

The DOE loses interest in clean coal and will not build a prototype clean coal power plant. From Scientific American:

Many experts believe that truly clean coal-fired power plants, coupled with such carbon capture and storage systems, offer one of the best hopes of keeping global greenhouse warming at bay in coming decades. But green energy watchers always suspected that the government was not ready to pony up the necessary billions it would take, including the ballooning $1.8-billion estimated budget for FutureGen, which many environmentalists charged was a mere payoff for the politically connected coal industry.

Environmentalists, many of whom believe that the term “clean coal” is an oxymoron, nonetheless view the project’s cancellation as yet another indication that the Bush administration lacks the commitment required to reduce rate of growth in atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions.

From The New York Times:

The idea is to capture carbon dioxide emitted by coal-fire power plants and then pump it deep into the earth to avoid further buildup of the gas in the atmosphere. But several experts said the plan still lacked the scope to test various gas-separation technologies, coal varieties, and — most important — whether varied geological conditions can permanently hold carbon dioxide.

Coal companies are desperate for this option to work, given how much coal remains to be mined. Many climate scientists and environmental campaigners see it as vital. Steady growth in coal use by developing and industrialized countries is expected to extend well beyond 2030.

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We can have a healthier environment with less pollution by integrating more renewable energy into homes, which in return adds excess energy into the collective energy grid. We can then either use the collective grid or the renewable energy produced from our home to charge our electric or PHEV cars. However, the beauty of oil is that pound for pound it is loaded with a lot of energy. Oil has produced our civilization today and it allows us to produce our renewable technologies. Consequently, oil should be saved and used appropriately or wisely. Instead, we unnecessarily consume oil with a zealous greed. The caveat is that oil not only gives us energy but carbon dioxide which is a greenhouse gas. Oil also produces other pollutants.

A certain amount of carbon dioxide is trapped underground within oil reserves and a certain amount aboveground within the atmosphere. Civilization adds to the carbon dioxide aboveground via tailpipe emissions. The automobile is but one instrumentality or utility amongst many that we use to convert oil into carbon dioxide. We have the technology to live in a cleaner world today and facilitate civilization to bank its oil wealth. We can then collect on the interest incurred. The amount of oil left in the ground represents wealth and wealth represents power. We live within an oil rush. It is sad but it is our reality. You can live in reality or you can shy away into a zombieotic or robotic like existence. I however want to save the polar bears. Polar bears not only represent nature’s ingenuity but as a species they are symbolic in that their health and survival or extinction will reflect our priorities as a species. From the Washington Times:

A Bush administration decision on listing polar bears as endangered species and victims of global warming has erupted into a separate battle on Capitol Hill to block oil and gas exploration in order to protect the animals’ arctic hunting grounds.

The administration delayed its January deadline on whether to list the bears, but is moving ahead with a separate move Feb. 6 to issue new permits for oil drilling in the Chukchi Sea, which Democrats and environmentalists say they oppose….

“Robert Frost wrote about two roads diverging in the wood, and here we have the Bush administration looking down two roads with regard to the polar bear,” Mr. Markey said. “Down one road lies the survival of the polar bear and the orderly consideration of oil drilling and global warming and common sense. Down the other road, too often traveled by this administration, lies regulatory lunacy and a blatant disregard for moral responsibility.”

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California to file suit at the District of Columbia Court of Appeals in Washington to challenge the EPA’s ruling

The Environmental Protection Agency or EPA is a politicized agency. It no longer governs environmental issues objectively but rather through subjective influence. The Bush Administration’s agenda is to reconstruct the world according to a vision they perceive as best with little or no influence from the outside or available intelligentsia. Consider this paragraph from an AFP story:

The Times reported that EPA staff believed Johnson made his decision after meetings between auto industry executives and Vice President Dick Cheney, and after a Chrysler executive sent a letter to the White House arguing why neither California nor the EPA should be allowed to regulate greenhouse gases.

Furthermore, the auto industry sued California on whether states have the right to regulate tailpipe emissions but the federal U.S. District Judge Anthony Ishii of Fresno rejected the automobile industry’s claim. However, according to the San Francisco Chronicle:

The California law, however, cannot be enforced without the approval of the Bush administration’s Environmental Protection Agency. The state asked the EPA two years ago for a waiver that would allow it to exceed federal clean-air requirements and regulate cars’ greenhouse gas emissions starting with 2009 models.

California Air Resources Board Chairwoman Mary Nichols noted that the Bush Administration “ignores the science and ignores the law to reach the politically convenient conclusion.” We have seen the same impositionalism with the Iraq War and now efforts to regulate climate change. The problem is that neoconservatives and some conservatives are narrow thinkers (excluding Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger since he can be republican and fight climate change effectively). The far left can suffer from the same deafness at times too. However, historically the majority of liberals and moderates are more holistic in their thinking even considering some conservative beliefs as part of their diverse framework. The same can be said for environmental regulation. Conservatives favor free markets to remedy the world’s needs and wants. However, for environmental regulation to work there must be strong federal governing in addition to voluntary and market-based programs. The environmental regulatory framework must be diverse. The Bush Administration fails to do this. It has created little or no new environmental regulation or mandates but instead has tried to weaken government oversight on the environment. To do this the Bush Administration with some conservative bloggers and pundits have used language to spin or twist public perception on issues such as climate change and the Endangered Species Act. President Bush was surreptitiously doing this during the 20 December 2007 President Bush Press Conference because there is no national standard for tailpipe emissions. California passed its own tailpipe emission standard back in 2002 as the Pavley Bill. Currently, the federal government has no tailpipe emission standard or legislation to regulate carbon pollution but President Bush said:

The question is how to have an effective strategy. Is it more effective to let each state make a decision as to how to proceed in curbing greenhouse gases? Or is it more effective to have a national strategy? Director Johnson made a decision based upon the fact that we passed a piece of legislation that enables us to have a national strategy, which is the — increasing CAFE standards to 35 miles an hour [sic] by 2020, and a substantial increase of alternative fuels, 36 billion gallons by 2022.

CAFE is not regulating greenhouse gases but finally increasing fuel efficiency standards which I believe should be set at 50 MPG. California and 16 or so other states want to regulate tailpipe emissions themselves. To do this they must obtain a waiver from the EPA. However, the EPA’s administrator Stephen Johnson denied a two-year-old request by California to set tough but necessary vehicle emission standards. The policy by California is part of an anti-climate change plan and strategy that goes beyond 2050. The federal strategy to date or the Energy Bill that President Bush recently signed only sets goals to 2020 and 2022.

California’s goals are more robust, and serious about climate change. The Bush Administration’s goals are anemic or insipid thus lacks vigor or interest of the actual issue. The federal government’s plan fails to actually address the issue of climate change. At best it is just whitewash on a fence. Mary Nichols explains the whitewashing or greenwashing:

Just to put a legal point on that, the [Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE)] legislation which is part of the Energy Bill [passed by Congress] is not a greenhouse gas emission standard. It’s a totally different thing. The argument that somehow because we now have a CAFE standard that means we shouldn’t be regulating greenhouse gases, it just doesn’t hold water, it makes no sense.

This Bush Administration has actually cited California’s strategy to fight climate change to the United Nations. The Editorial Board of the New York Times Blog explains the whitewashing or greenwashing:

Environmental activists have come up with a more recent and specific example. In a November letter to E.P.A. administrator Stephen Johnson urging him to grant California’s request, a coalition of green groups pointed out that the administration had actually bragged about the California plan on pages 52 and 53 and in Table IV-1 of the Climate Action report it sent to the United Nations in July. The report, one of the periodic assessments required under the original U.N. climate agreement in Rio in 1992, specifically listed California’s “Vehicle GHG emissions standards” as one of the steps that were helping the administration achieve its goal of reducing what it called greenhouse gas “intensity.”

However, Governor Schwarzenegger is confident the law is on his side:

I have no doubt that we will prevail because the law, science and the public’s demand for leadership are on our side” [in addition the] “EPA’s denial of our waiver request to enact the nation’s cleanest standards for vehicle emissions is legally indefensible and another example of the failure to treat climate change with the seriousness it demands.

Governor Schwarzenegger further notes:

And I think what it’s basically saying is that they made a decision which is against the will of millions of people in California. It’s a decision that is against the will of 16 other states. When I look at that, the Environmental Protection Agency is the Environmental Destruction Agency. The name says it protects the environment. How can that protect the environment when you don’t want to let anyone really move forward with this agenda?

The climate change problem was first identified by scientists and accepted by liberal thinkers and from the start was labeled as false by a majority uneducated on the issue. Today, the public largely perceives climate change as a threat especially folks that spend significant amounts of time being closely connected to the land through activities such as farming, fishing, hiking, hunting or even skiing.

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) is another issue that is typically demonized and misrepresented as government law that takes land without compensation. The ESA is a mitigatory statute where 100% land takings are very rare or have never occurred. I cannot think of an example of a 100% land taking under the ESA. A property owner typically gives up a right to construct on a portion of their land when endangered species or essential habitat is involved but may still use that portion of their land for other activities such as hiking or even hunting and fishing. In addition, this type of interest in preserving land benefits all of society just as solid and real leadership will benefit all Americans on the issue of climate change.

On the Net: Clean Air Watch
On the Net: California League of Conservation Voters Blog

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Late adopters never win in the auto industry. The change should have been made long before or should happen now. Otherwise, the industry will suffer even more loses. The industry is literally being dragged kicking and screaming into a more fuel efficient era. Simply poor management. From CBS NEWS:

In its lawsuit against the state, the auto industry argued that it was the federal government’s responsibility to establish one uniform fuel economy standard. Without one, manufacturers would be forced to produce vehicles using too many different efficiency standards.

They argued that a federal energy law passed in 1975 gives the U.S. Department of Transportation sole jurisdiction over fuel economy.

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Monetary incentives given to developing countries could work as an investment that provide significant future returns to both developing and developed countries. Especially, as green knowledge and technology continues to trickle and expand. From NPR:

One idea is to pay developing countries to stop cutting down their forests. When trees burn or decompose, they send carbon up into the atmosphere and that warms the planet. Negotiators in Bali will be pressing hard for a scheme they call “reduced deforestation.”

The idea of paying poor countries not to cut down their forests didn’t make it into the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Critics said rich countries shouldn’t be able to buy “carbon indulgences” from poor countries.

But now there’s a carbon market. Companies that need to cut their emissions can buy the right to pollute by subsidizing things like wind turbines or methane traps at pig farms. But they can’t buy trees.

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The real cost of saving the planet is not so great after all something I have always thought just made sense. From BusinessWeek:

For example, the final result varies dramatically depending on the assumptions about the pace of innovation. If the model assumes that development of new forms of renewable energy will continue at the same rate as before carbon emission limits were enacted (when the financial incentives for development were lower), then cutting carbon emissions will be costly. But if you assume that an added financial incentive, such as a price on carbon emissions, will increase the pace of innovation and the development of new technologies, then meeting the limits will be cheaper. And if the model discounts the future benefits of avoiding the dangers of warming in terms of their present value, it will also predict higher overall costs.

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Natural disasters are another variable to be considered in climate change models. The University of New Hampshire is conducting research to determine how much carbon is released during natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina. From the Boston Globe:

George Hurtt, an associate professor who co-authored a study published in the academic journal Science, said the more than 300 million dead or damaged trees will send about 105 million metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere as they decompose, an amount equal to the carbon all forests in the United States take in each year.

The research is significant because while carbon emissions are considered a key factor in global warming, most scientists have focused only on man-made carbon emissions, Hurtt said. Some researchers believe that as global warming progresses, storms will get stronger and happen more frequently, Hurtt said, which creates a cycle of putting more carbon into the atmosphere.

“This situation with these hurricanes is a factor that hasn’t been considered yet that could make any amount of global warming that might happen due to human emissions even worse,” he said.

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Why aren’t federal or state automobiles electric or hybrid? I understand some federal programs cannot logistically use electric or hybrid automobiles however, what about the state and federal employees that can drive an electric or hybrid car especially in cities or when commuting between cities? I agree with Chris Dodd. From USATODAY.com:

Voters were invited to ask questions via video at the July 23 debate sponsored by CNN and YouTube….

One clip featured a snowman asking the candidates what they would do to make sure his son lives a full and happy life, then cut to a shot of a tiny snowman. Chris Dodd responded that he’d make federal car fleets all hybrids or electric, and touted his plan for a carbon tax. “You’ve got to tax polluters,” he said.

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Diane Rehm and her panel discuss how the private sector is adapting to climate change where the “green revolution will as time goes on rival globalization and the arrival of the internet in terms” of influence on the private sector. Click to listen to “Going Green in the Private Sector“.