Live Green Or Die  

One of the things I missed out on following closely while I was busy moving was the Pop ! tech conference. Both Ethan Zuckermann and the Christian Science Monitor have good roundups of the event. The most relevant one (from my point of view - though most talks are pretty interesting) is the post by Greg Lamb at the CSM on "Live Green Or Die". Ethan Zuckermann's huge set of posts also included one on Thomas Barnett and the gap / arc of instability, who I've talked about a few times here. Ethan also introduced me to a new word - erinaceous - and taught me that you can die of jetlag.

Some 500 people drive or fly to the Pop!Tech conference on Maine's scenic midcoast from all over the US, and a few from overseas. They burn a lot of fossil fuels to get here. To make up for that, the conference is sponsoring solar power projects by the Solar Electric Light Fund that it says will save twice the amount of carbon emissions that will be expended by the conference and its attendees.

Climate change and where tomorrow's energy will come from after fossil fuels are spent has to be on any agenda grappling with the great issues. No exception here. As one speaker put it: Al Gore was wrong about climate change and clean energy: It's much more serious a problem than he says.

Tom Friedman, the New York Times columnist and author of "The World Is Flat," used his 20 minutes to basically sound out the themes in his book and columns. They're powerful themes. We have to redefine what we mean by "green," he says. It's not all granola crunching and "girly men," he says, it's not something "vaguely French." Green, Friedman says, is the new "red, white, and blue," patriotic and capitalistic. If we don't solve our oil addiction, he says, we're going to "heat up, choke up, burn up" this planet. The Chinese are already recognizing they can't follow the US model. A Green China, he says, is going to pose a greater challenge than Red China ever did.

Friedman knows how to create memorable images with words, giving his ideas intellectual muscle and mindshare. So do nearly all the presenters, which make them not only thinkers but impressive communicators as well.

Stewart Brand continued the green theme later Thursday by outlining where the environmental movement may be headed. Those with a romantic attachment to Mother Earth will still be on the front lines, but increasingly they're being joined by hard-headed scientists and engineers. New and better data is pushing everything. The scientists and engineers, many of whom still feel uncomfortable being ID'd as "green," are more likely to recognize that humans are already "Terra forming," or changing the natural world using science and technology, to meet their demands. (So we better do it right, he adds.) They're going to be more open to nuclear power if the alternatives are really worse. (Maybe we don't need a 10,000 year solution for nuclear waste, but a few-hundred year solution will do. Presumably the world and scientific knowledge will be much more prepared to deal with it by then.)

One billion people now live in squatter cities, the vast slums that surround cities, especially in the developing world. Two billion more are expected. That's trouble in some obvious ways, but surprisingly, perhaps, there's another side. In the slums, everything is recycled, much less fossil fuel is consumed per person, and underneath the chaos, entrepreneurs come up with innovative ideas to make it all work.

Seeing what's happening clearly is always the first step. But follow-up sessions from people sharing innovative ideas, like environmental journalist Alex Steffen, show there's no excuse not to go beyond hand-wringing. "Junk tagging," for example, is just one idea for an Internet-connected world. Why not point out online the location of one person's junk to everyone? It might be someone else's treasure, he says. Technology can "dematerialize" some of the damage done by an industrialized society. Netflix, the mail-based video company, not only has a profitable business plan: It also eliminates car trips to the video store and the video store itself, along with all the energy and materials that are needed to build and maintain it.

We gain status and identity from possessing objects, but services like car sharing programs in big cities show that the need is really something else, he says. We need to get someplace. Could dishwashers be shared too? Power drills? "We want the hole, not the drill," Steffen says.

Better product design can play a part, too. What if old cellphones could be put in a 350-degree oven for a few minutes and simply pop apart into their constituent parts for easy recycling? With the one billion cell phones expected to be sold worldwide next year, that's a compelling idea. (Get used to recycling going mainstream. "Virgin" raw materials will be used up in the next 30 to 70 years, says materials researcher Blaine Brownell.)

Sometimes no new technology is needed at all, only a better understanding of human nature. Homes use less energy when the electric or gas meter is put INSIDE the house where residents see what's happening. Same thing for cars: Drivers whose cars show how many miles per gallon the car is achieving actually drive in a more fuel-efficient way.

Apparently, knowledge IS power.

Grist has a great interview on "Planning for the long term"

How can we plan for the long term?

How can we take action today to fight against atmospheric greenhouse gases emissions, the effects of which will become apparent only over the very long term? We asked Andrew E. Dessler of Texas A&M University and Patrick Criqui of the LEPII Research Laboratory (CNRS - University of Grenoble).

Q:Why is it important to engage now a longterm mitigation strategy?

Andrew E. Dessler: Owing to CO2's long atmospheric lifetime, the impacts of climate change are the result of emissions integrated over the previous several centuries. Further, the technical and economic changes needed to reduce our vulnerability to climate change are also long-term activities, on the order of several decades for new technology to be fully incorporated into our economy.

Together, these two factors mean that if we want to head off possibly serious climate impacts at the end of the 21st century, we need to begin taking actions in the very near future. A good analogy is piloting a supertanker. Because of their immense size, supertankers turn very slowly. To avoid a hazard, the pilot has to begin turning the supertanker well before the hazard is actually reached. By the time the ship is upon the hazard, it's too late to avoid.

Q:What are the principal energy stakes in the next few decades?

Patrick Criqui: Sometimes I say that to achieve sustainable energy growth, like Ulysses, we have to sail between Scylla and Charybdis. The first risk is a scarcity of cheap oil and gas resources, as evidenced these days by the threat of peak oil (and peak gas). The second risk is climate change. But we can't count on a scarcity of oil and gas resources to solve the problem of climate change.

We have abundant coal resources, and the "dash for coal" has already started. If we let this massive use of coal continue without taking adequate precautions -- i.e. without retaining the CO2 -- we are heading for a climatic catastrophe.

Q:How would such a strategy impact the energy system?

Andrew E. Dessler: Because the energy business makes up such a large fraction of our greenhouse gas emissions, any significant emissions reductions will necessarily require a wholesale reconfiguration of how we generate and use energy. In particular, it is likely that some combination of renewable energy (solar, wind, biomass, etc.), nuclear, and carbon sequestration will have to be implemented on a large scale to meet our growing energy needs. Note that this will occur even in the absence of any policies to address global warming -- the impending exhaustion of low-cost oil and gas will in any event force us to redesign our energy systems.

It seems UK Tory leader David Cameron is really getting into the green vibe, announcing he would like to stick a wind turbine and solar panels on the roof of Number 10 Downing Street. If that were to actually happen I'd be pelasantly surprised. It sounds like his leadership skills are in need of some work though - who is the "they" that decides what the Prime Minister can put on the roof of his house (no obvious tinfoil answers please).

DAVID CAMERON said that he would like to put a wind turbine and solar panels on the roof of 10 Downing Street if he became Prime Minister.

The Tory leader, who is having a power-generating wind turbine installed at his new London home, was asked during an interview on BBC One’s Politics Show yesterday if he would do the same should he get to No 10.

“If they’d let me, yes,” he replied.

When asked about solar panels, which are generally used to heat hot-water systems, his answer was the same. “I think it would be a great idea because one of the things about the environment is . . . the Government has got to give the lead. Yes, politicians have to give a lead, but it’s something all of us can do something about.

The Times seems to be going green along with the Tories (got to keep the base informed of the new party line), with another report stating that we need to "cut carbon emissions now or face economic calamity later". It seems Rupert Murdoch's about face on global warming is serious (in the UK at least). This weekend's Australian Financial Review had a good pair of articles on Murdoch's fervent embrace of the internet and of global warming - and the nervousness it is causing the Republican party. I've said before that Rupert may be evil but he's not stupid (in fact he's very smart) and these 2 signs that he can clearly see where the future leads reminded me of a remark Gough Whitlam made a year or two ago - Murdoch just wants to back winners - and that means he is quite capable of swinging from one side of politics to another (it probably also explains his Chinese wife and big house outside Beijing for that matter).

A STARK warning of the economic costs and damage to the world that could result from global warming will be set out today in a report to be submitted to the Government.

Sir Nicholas Stern, the former chief economist at the World Bank, will advise that the costs of confronting climate change are far outweighed by those of failing to act in time. His 700-word report forecasts floods, famine, mass movement of people and the destruction of species if the Earth’s temperature continues to rise.

Gordon Brown, who commissioned the report, will accept its main recommendation for a global carbon-trading scheme to enforce limits on greenhouse gas emissions. The Chancellor will also announce that Al Gore, the former US Vice-President, is to advise him on environmental policy.

Sir Nicholas’s report, hailed as the most comprehensive study of the economics of climate change yet, makes the case for early action to avoid a calamitous recession later. Acting now to cut carbon emissions would cost 1 per cent of global GDP a year; by doing nothing, the costs at the time would be a minimum of 5 per cent and as high as 20 per cent of GDP a year, he concludes.

The report looks at the risks of uncontrolled climate change, saying that 200 million people may be permanently displaced if the world’s temperature rises by 3C (5.4F) from pre-industrial levels, and that rising sea levels from melting ice sheets could threaten the homes of one in every twenty people if temperatures go up by 2C-3C. All countries will be affected by global warming but the effects will be most severe on the poorest areas, potentially leading to more famine in Africa and leaving millions unable to produce or purchase sufficient food, it says.

Between 15 and 40 per cent of species would face extinction if the world’s temperature were to rise by 2C.

Just a short post tonight - I've also filled up the link bucket again.