the body politek

Raptors--a class that includes hawks, falcons, and eagles--are daytime predatory birds.  They migrate in windy areas where, for obvious reasons, wind turbines are best sited. 

Siting these wind turbines so that they pose the least possible threat to migrating raptors is a difficult, but worthwhile, challenge.  The potential of wind power is being evaluated in states like Montana where the wind blows almost continuously and hard in the eastern part of the state, where raptor species like the Ferruginous, Swainson’s and Red-tailed Hawks and Prairie Falcons and Golden Eagles migrate and nest.

During their migrations raptors can either fly high in huge kettles or clusters, or fly in at low altitudes, vulnerable to wind turbines.

Raptors have the tendency to fly against the wind following updrafts right into the sites of wind turbines.

These turbines are already placed where they can, and do, negatively affect raptors and other forms of wildlife. Wind energy is a viable form of alternative energy that is supported by the NRDC in its fight to curb the affects of global climate change on wildlife.

There do exist guidelines to put wind turbines in places so that the impact on raptors and other forms of wildlife is minimal to non-existent.

By heeding these guidelines and more responsibly siting wind turbines, we can protect raptors and all other birds, bats and butterflies as well as other animals as we we develop wind energy and place wind turbines to best mitigate and arrest global climate change.

[Photo from flickr user benefit of hindsight]

The Q Drum eases the task of fetching water for peoples in developing nations. Climate change has required a countless number of people all around the world to travel greater distances to retrieve water for everyday use. The Q Drum allows a child to pull the full capacity of 50 liters of water over flat terrain with comparative ease.

Typical methods of water transport include a sundry of containers that must be carried, carted, driven, or hauled by animal or bicycle to and from the water source. This can often mean unhygienic conditions with inappropriate containers and exposure to pathogens, requires high energy output, and is labor intensive and time consuming. The Q Drum was designed to be simple, cost effective, keep the weight on the ground, be durable, and to have no moving parts or handles that could break. Using rural villages throughout South Africa and Angola as their model and testing grounds Q Drum Ltd has created a coping method for the effects of desertification and water shortage so prevalent throughout Africa.

The effort required to move the Q Drum allows children to be active helpers in a very important domestic duty, which could free adults from this job, which is typically the responsibility of women. The drums are stackable, up to 40 high when filled, meaning storage space can be maximized and large scale transport possible.

 As climate change continues to affect weather patterns, vegetation, food supplies, and water supplies humans will be forced to adapt. Until we can fix some of the damage we’ve inflicted on the planet innovations like the Q Drum will be essential.

[This article was originally posted on greenUPGRADER.]

I was sitting in my son's living room in Bozeman, Montana two days ago and an adult bald eagle flew overhead, two blocks from downtown Bozeman. Ten days ago, there were eight bald eagles flying overhead and perched in the Cottonwoods nearby, offering exceptional looks at a place called Ennis Lake. In Northern Virginia I saw a bald eagle perched on a tulip tree in Potomac Overlook Regional Park near Washington D.C last year.

Forty years ago you would have been hard pressed to see such a site, even in places like Bozeman, Montana. Now eagles are nesting across the United States, even in large urban areas where they had not been seen in years. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have de-listed the bald eagle from the Endangered Species Act.

In an article published in the New York Times on 11/25/08, the bald eagle is identified as a bird that might become endangered again as toxins are more common in the eagle's food source. This is significant because the bald eagle is a symbol of our country.

The article identifies Mercury as the source of trouble, but there are many other toxins of concern in the eagle's habitat. In the early 1970's there were only one nesting pair of bald eagles in the state of New York, there are now 145 nesting pair's of eagles in New York state, according to the New York Times. That's a lot of eagles for one of the nation's most populous states.

In the early 1970s DDT was a problem for eagles as well as the endangered Peregrine Falcon, and now the successful nesting of bald eagles may in fact be slow because of Mercury contamination in places like the Catskill region of New York.

According to the article, eagles may be barometers for overall environmental health, an issue that is heavily monitored by groups like NRDC. Eagles, like all predatory species of animal, act like "canaries in a mine shaft" and in the Catskill region of New York, there are several reservoirs that provide the drinking water for several million US residents in New York City. I was not aware of that.

The Biodiversity Research Institute in Maine is studying how methyl mercury is ending up in a food chain on top of which perch Bald Eagles and human beings. The bald eagle eats fish that are contaminated with methyl Mercury. Humans drink the water that is partial habitat for the eagles and humans eat fish from the same waters.

Mercury levels in other eagle populations are rising throughout the US, according to the New York Times. There is now more scrutiny in this kind of toxin contamination and in the near future it will become a major problem for Bald Eagles and humans if nothing is done. Groups like NRDC are trying to abait toxins in the eagles environment and our environment and need to be supported in this essential work.

 Protection under the Endangered Species Act really helped the bald eagle become a success story. That protection lapsed when the eagle was delisted two years ago. Toxins have always been a problem for all raptorial birds, but now more so than ever the toxins are a real problem that has increased over many boundaries.

Eagles, which not long ago we thought were doing well, are now dying at an alarming rate from toxins they get in their food supply; like ducks with lead in them and fish and road kill with Mercury. It's hard being at the top of the food chain like the Bald Eagle when you regularly eat foods with high doses of toxins in them.

Last year I saw another type of once-beleaguered bird near Washington D.C., again in northern Virginia on a lake near Alexandria, a bird that was brought back from the brink, like the bald eagle, which also was scarce and in danger of extinction, the Peregrine Falcon.

The Peregrine species suffered, like the eagle of today, from toxins.  In the case of the peregrine, it was DDT, now banned in the US. The falcons' eggs were getting too thin for the bird to reproduce successfully--so many environmental groups went to work to bring the birds back from the brink of extinction.

Now you can see Peregrines commonly as they migrate along coastlines dive bombing shore birds from eastern North America. You can even watch them in cities like Boise, Idaho, as they harass the local pigeon population.

We have to make sure the eagle does not fly so close to the edge, the way its cousin the Peregrine Falcon did.

[Photo from flickr user island_explorer]

Two years ago, OnEarth ran an interesting article and podcast on socially responsible investing. Remembrance of those pieces quickened my interest in an article in yesterday's New York Times on green investment funds; the Times story provides something of a yardstick re how socially responsible investing is evolving.

Most significant is that the institutional-investing heavyweights -- pension funds, foundations, universities and the like -- are beginning to get involved:

Until recently, green investment funds were mostly a niche for individual investors. But now investing with the idea of improving the environmental actions of corporations, not just maximizing profit, is catching on among some big pension funds and foundations, particularly in Europe and even in the United States.

It's also plain to see that at least some of these funds are today more narrowly focused on climate change and have made leaps in the sophistication with which they are using their portfolios to encourage companies to reduce carbon footprints.

The Times story notes that a lot of institutional investors remain hesitant to commit to green investment funds, for fear that doing so will hurt earnings. Here's hoping that there are now enough large investors -- among those mentioned by the article are the California State Teachers' Retirement fund and the pension funds of several EU national governments -- taking the plunge to produce empirical evidence that maximizing earnings and socially responsible investing needn't be contradictory.

A mere few centuries after they founded Nieuw Amsterdam , (a distant settlement that came to be known as New York City); the worlds leading experts in sea-level adaptations may see their former colony drowned. But could Dutch dykes ever save its Nieuw Amsterdam?

Beginning with just over three feet of sea level rise, the impact on the US would be calamitous, having the potential to destabilize many highly populated areas of this country, according to a Coastal Impact Study published at Architecture 2030.

The study challenges the notion that has been advanced by the media that only poor nations far from us will be impacted by climate change, which has lead to complacency about the need to confront global warming.

But even three feet of sea level rise - which is on the low side of most IPPC reports - will displace not just those other far away foreigners, but that will affect most of our own coastal residents.

As illustrated in these interactive maps of the effects on our own coasts:

"Starting in East Boston and moving down along the East Coast, around Florida and over to the Gulf of Mexico, then up along the West Coast and ending with the city of Honolulu, Hawaii, a picture of inundation, population displacement and catastrophic property loss develops. With a business-as-usual approach, where fossil-fuel consumption and GHG emissions continue to increase, we will likely see a warming of 2 °C to 3 °C this century with a planetary energy imbalance sufficient to melt enough ice to raise sea level by several meters.Once the process of ice sheet disintegration begins, the impact on the US is unremitting, and at each additional increment, additional cities and towns will be adversely affected." If you think that bailing out Wall Street is expensive, you can imagine what its going to cost us to really bail out Wall Street.

Maybe we should just give Nieuw Amsterdam back?

From Architecture 2030
Art by Peter Kleiner

First posted at Red,Green And Blue

I lived in India for five months last spring—a semester abroad from Columbia University. As an English major with a concentration in Sustainable Development, I believe I was fated to keep a blog while there—and that it was equally my fate to spend much of my time writing about the environmental and economic development catastrophes that went unnoticed all around me—the trash burning in piles everywhere, the complete lack of any kind of garbage collection system, the overwhelming absence of environmental knowledge. It was helpful to have my blog as a journal of sorts to write about what I saw and experienced every day. I have entries detailing the trash and dirt and filth that is everywhere; the masses of people, the likes of which only experience allows you realize what “over population” and “one in every sixth person in the world is Indian” actually mean. The images still in my head of begging children tapping on the windows of our auto-rickshaws, their fingers reaching inside, disheveled and dirtier than you can possibly image children could be; the picture of the seven year old girl wading through the piles up to her knees in plastic bottles and trash bags and human waste, carrying on her hip her own little baby brother. Images to make your heart break—even the most unsentimental, hardhearted.

While I lived perfectly comfortably, and in no ways was I even close to being among the poorest of India, I saw the poverty and the filth from the very moment I woke up (the maid who swept my room and washed my clothes arriving before sunup only to leave by 8am to get to her ‘real job’ then to return at 6pm to do night duties) to the moment I went to bed (the starving puppies that run wild even in the nicest of neighborhoods and never sleep at night, whining all night). And it was there in every moment in between: no trash cans in the whole country, people throwing every piece of waste and garbage out the train windows day and night, burning plastic and empty bags in every city, littered across the fields of my own college campus.

In describing these moments of what I saw, I felt, at least partially, successful in translating how profoundly affected I had been by my time living in India; but there is only so much I can say.  Writing about what I saw takes me far, but only so far. Pictures really are, in this case as in so many, worth a thousand, a million words. In particular, profoundly real are such pictures in motion—that is to say, movies!

Sadly, however, I feel that India has been misrepresented in the movie world. Oftentimes, India’s spirituality is idealized, as in Wes Anderson’s “Darjeeling Limited” where the colonial history is used to further the theme of the lost history of brothers. In other cases, as in many Bollywood films, it is the westernized, rich and glitzy sides of the culture that get highlighted, while the issues of poverty, population overflow, and garbage are glossed over. I had yet to feel comfortably saying of any movie, “Here is a movie that represents the India that I saw.” That is, until now.

To put it simply, if you haven't seen Danny Boyle's ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ yet, you must. There are a lot of reasons to see this movie, not the least of which is environmental—which is fitting, as this is appearing on an environmental blog. Because this is not simply a rave review of a fantastic movie that has a rich plot and solid acting (which this does have). There is a whole lot more I want to say, which has everything to do with my own understanding of the issues of the environment and economics, as they directly confront the experiences I had living in India last spring.

Probably you've heard at least a word or two about this film, but a brief synopsis will be helpful (and nothing can really be spoiled here, because the plot is pretty clear within the first 5 minutes of movie): Jamal Malik, born into the slums of Mumbai, India is one question away from winning 20 million rupees on the Indian version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire." Unable to believe that the slum-raised, chai-serving orphan, now a boy of 18, could have possibly made it this far in the game without outside help, the show breaks for the night before the final question, and the Indian police arrest and interrogate (read: torture) Jamal, expecting him to confess to cheating. But Jamal sticks to his story—that he had no help from anyone. To prove his innocence, he recounts for the police through flashbacks into his childhood, the truly unbelievable episodes of his life that explain how he came to know the answer to each question.

While realistically implausible that Jamal's life would coincide perfectly with these precise questions, the movie highlights a far more poignant position: that is, the emotional, social, and environmental story of an India that is darker than Wes Anderson or Bollywood has been willing to show us. In suspending our disbelief of relativity and coincidence, we realize that this movie reveals to us a true story of the Indian slums, the unbearable hardships of human existence, and the journey of children who do not give up on love and loyalty. It sounds corny and it sounds predictable—and in some ways it is just that—but on a basic level, Boyle has created a film that soars above the plot-twisters and double-crossing agents of Bond and other predictably unpredictable movies. Instead, conflated as it sounds, he has grounded a feel-good movie in the real-world horrors of the slum life of Mumbai's poorest. And in so doing he has brought to life a world that is usually neatly and quietly hidden from our view.

I lived in Hyderabad, while in India, which is located in the south of the subcontinent, landlocked in Andhra Pradesh, high on the Deccan Plateau. Hyderabad was once the seat of the Mughal Empire in India; and historically, the city has been upheld as an example of peaceful coexistence between Hindus and Muslims. In recent years Hyderabad has been affected deeply by the IT business boom that has spread across most of India; and as a result Hyderabad is best known today as the second biggest tech center in the country  (trailing Bangalore only). Hyderabad is where so many of your calls to Verizon help-lines get answered at all hours of the day and night. As a result of this influx of IT wealth Hyderabad has grown exponentially, stretching miles beyond the original city limits—city sprawl that appears to be never-ending to the naked eye. There are western clubs, nice restaurants, and an ex-pat population of at least a decent size. And yet, amid that urbanization and development, the streets are filled with dirty beggar kids, trash of all kinds, and animals everywhere. And of course, Hyderabad is no spectacular exception—much, if not all of India, has boomed in similar proportions, with similar population, poverty, environmental, and social consequences.

Of course, from a sustainability point of view, the question is how can India (and the world), provide economically and socially for the increased masses of the developing world, while still maintaining any semblance of environmental protection? This is not a new issue, of course; it is simply a restating of the problem inherent in protecting the environment while working to bring the growing populations of the world the same rights and goods that citizens of developed countries enjoy. It is the pivotal question at the heart of the study of Sustainable Development. And from the perspective of an American college student, already studying the economics of environmental change and the politics of sustainability, it was an invaluable way of seeing how profoundly interlinked and complicated the problems of development and environmental degradation actually are.

And this is where I feel the movie particularly rings true. Because it manages to present these issues, not outright, but more subtly through the very problems the character face, the ways in which they come to terms with their new life realities, and in their unflagging adherence to their own loyalties and love. The film then, is not just true to the complicated life-histories of India’s varied populations; nor is it unique only because it throws together the problems of poverty and filth with questions of justice and loyalty. Rather, it is all of these, and it is more: it shows with cinematic clarity precisely what the social, environmental, and economic trade offs actually look like of the population boom in India’s most depressed slums, for her most undervalued heroes.

So, yes I love the movie because it shows the India I at once loved and feared. But not just because it is a good story. Nor do I love it just because it brings the entire city to life, with an indiscriminating eye for the good and the evil within it—we get the slums and the pimps, the laughter and the smiles; the cool sun glasses and dictatorship and patriarchal terror over women; the human waste and piles of plastic garbage; and the saris and the silks. What the movie shows is that all aspects of India are Indian, and thus it accepts them all as realities present today. Here is a movie I can say, “Watch this. Then talk to me about India and about garbage and about too many people, about sadness and mutilation.” For here is a movie that does capture the highest and the lowest that humanity is capable of—and it was this above all else that most shocked me about India: the death right next to the life; the child’s eyes peering out of the filthy hair; the beauty of the flower amid the trash heaps burning by the side of the roads.

This is not a documentary film of the slums of India (because there have been those, too) because the points of depravity and horror are not the focus of the film—as a documentary would have it. Rather the poverty and filth are simply part of the larger story being told. As such Boyle has managed to incorporate this harshness into the world of his film in the same way that that harshness actually exists in India today. The film does not qualify or comment on the issues of trash, population overflow, and poverty. It simply states them as facts.  And it is therefore not a movie about solving the problems of India, but rather a baseline of understanding from which solutions to the fundamental issues at hand can be formulated.

 (Photo used courtesy of PhotoA.nl @ flickr. Used under the Creative Commons lisence.)

I’d like to make a simple argument: that our world’s cities must play a vital role in the fight against climate change. Indeed, I think they already do.

But first, let’s put the progress of our world’s cities into perspective.

In 1900, only 160 million people, or one tenth of the world’s population, lived in urban areas. As of shortly after 2000, that number had grown twenty-fold to nearly half the world’s population, or 3.2 billion people.

According to UN projections, this process of urbanization is only going to accelerate. By 2025, the UN predicts 70 percent of the human population will be living in cities. By the end of this year, over half will live in urban areas for the first time in human history.

Similarly, in 1950, the only city to exceed 10 million people was New York City. By 2015, of the 44 cities with 5-10 million inhabitants, as many as 39 of them will be in developing countries – the areas most poorly equipped to handle the challenges presented by a changing climate.

In contrast, the wealthiest 25 percent of the world consume 80 percent of the world’s economic output. Of this 25 percent, more than 80 percent live in cities. And so it is that cities consume 75 per cent of the world's energy and produce 80 per cent of its greenhouse gas emissions -– most of these from the Northern Hemisphere.

This represents an enormous shift in the history of human civilization. For a majority of the 2 million year history of our species, we lived in caves, villages and suburbs. Now, for the first time, our environment will be a built, rather than an organic, environment.

What do we take from this?

Through the lens of increased urbanization, matched by increased concentrations of greenhouse gas concentrations, we see a world much as former President Bill Clinton described his vision of Rwanda, in his acceptance of the TED Prize. “We live in a world that everyone knows is interdependent but insufficient,” he said. Insufficient because it is “profoundly unequal.”

It would be easy to accept these as unavoidable conditions of urban development. Urban development has spread rapidly, population growth has continued apace and, many argue, affluence has bred consumption which has fueled degradation.

Furthermore, some will argue that global problems must be met with global solutions. They will also argue that the scope of multi-nationals and the concentrated power of federal governments mean that the emission targets of cities can be easily circumvented or easily overruled. Cities, according to this logic, are either besides or below the point.

But it this really true?

It is my belief that this position -– this conviction that cities are confined to the squalor of trash and not to the splendor of trees -- defies our better understanding of cities’ historic role. They are barometers of progress and, as such, reflect the vitality of their home country.

Consider the growing international interest in local climate networks.

In the US, for instance, there is the US Mayor’s Climate Protection Agreement. Created in 2005, more than 800 mayors have signed. Much the same is true in the UK. Since its creation in 2000, over 300 local authorities have signed the Nottingham Declaration. Ken Livingston, former Mayor of London, launched the Energy Strategy for London. Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York, has launched a similarly ambitious program.

Outside of these national networks, there are a serious of international networks as well. Included in this list is the ICLEI, as well as the CCP program, which now includes 675 local authorities. There is also C40 of global cities, representing a commitment from 40 of the world’s largest cities to tackle climate change. It is perhaps The Climate Alliance, which has more than 1,300 members in 17 European countries, that reflects the most international example of locally-based alliances.

Given the global consequence of localized environmental problems, these networks provide a multi-dimensional strategy that fills the strategic gaps left by one-dimensional regimes. At best, these networks provide effective depth and breadth – what the academics Michele Betsill and Harriet Bulkeley call “vertical tiers of government and horizontally organized form of governance.”

It comes down to a simple truth: more people are moving into ever-larger cities. For the first time, more people live in urban areas, than don’t. This presents two conflicting challenges.

One, to reduce the personal impact of urban environments on local citizens. And two, to reduce the diffuse impact of urban centers on our global environment.

This means working with environments traditionally disassociated with the natural world, and recalibrating our understanding of the locus of global influence away from the affluence of national governments to the main and often gritty streets of global cities. It is not that we need either local or national governments. We need both –- and we need both to be on their best behavior.

Climate change has become omnipresent. There are concerns of sea level rise, changing precipitation patterns, global warming, ocean acidification, species extinctions, intensity of fires and hurricanes, you've heard them all. What is the scientist's approach to study the impact of climate change? Well, there are many avenues, and as a graduate student with a high degree of interest in the sensitivity of marine animals to climate change, everyday I am refining my approach in order to contribute meaningful and sound science of how marine animals interact with their environment and how they will be impacted by anthropogenically-driven climate change.

In order to investigate the effect climate change has on marine animals, we must first have an in-depth understanding of their life history and ecology. Let's take the sand dollar as an example.

Divers along the West Coast can tell you they form dense beds along sandy bottoms. They also position themselves upright - by inundating their bottom third into the sand for support - to efficiently feed on small particles floating in the water. And of course, we can all identify this animal from the pure symmetry and beauty of its skeleton.

The life history of a sand dollar is quite complex yet fascinates the naturalist in us all. First of all, how do the sand dollar populations persist from generation to generation? In the simplest terms, adults need to survive and reproduce; the resulting individuals must grow, mature, and reproduce themselves. This sounds easy enough.

It's not. To reproduce, adults broodcast spawn - meaning males and females release sperm and egg into the water column to be fertilized, which is risky. Nearshore currents are always moving which dilutes the sperm and egg. So how will sperm and egg ever find each other? Well, this is one reason why adults aggregate, coordinate spawning events, and increase the likelihood of fertilization. In addition, the females don't just produce a few eggs, they produce hundreds of thousands, and the males don't just produce hundreds of thousands of sperm, they produce billions.

After fertilization, what's next? The resulting embryo disperses with ocean currents and develops into a form which shares no resemblance to the adult. The larval form begins to feed within days and disperses for weeks to months. This dispersal phase is very important to sand dollar populations along the west coast. Larvae produced in one location can drift with the currents, grow up, and settle into a population down the road. The settling phase is a stressful time for the sand dollar larvae; the larvae find (but not always) a suitable habitat, and initiate metamorphosis. During metamorphosis, feeding stops and morphology reorganizes to resemble the iconic adult form. A successfully metamorphed juvenile grows, matures, and must successfully spawn for populations to persist.

This is the general life history of many marine invertebrates: sea urchins, sea cucumbers, mussels, sea stars. Now that we are familiar with the basic life history patterns of coastal invertebrates, we can begin to think about what restricts their survival, and what happens when their environment starts to change.

Marine Organisms and Climate Change

The sand dollar's environment has been altered, is being altered and will be further altered by climate change. For example, sea surface warming affects adult populations, and also impacts larvae and juveniles. Furthermore, it's not just temperature, but changing ocean chemistry as well. Up to 40% of the carbon dioxide humans produce is absorbed by the ocean. The forms of carbon dioxide in seawater - carbonate, bicarbonate and carbonic acid - change proportionally as a function of the amount of carbon dioxide added. This in effect alters the pH of seawater, and the result is ocean acidification. So why is ocean acidification a concern for our sand dollar? Because its skeleton is a form of calcium carbonate, and the stability of calcium carbonate depends partially on the pH of the seawater. Thus far, laboratory experiments on calcifying species suggest that calcification rates decrease under ocean acidification scenarios.

The difficult part of science is quantifying whether a decrease in calcification of an individual will have a negative impact on the population as a whole. Furthermore, not only are we concerned about acidification for these populations, but also sea surface warming, habitat change, increased stratification, altered climatic patterns which could result in more or less rain and runoff. It seems as if this exhaustive list is discouraging, but it shouldn't be. There is a great deal of effort to answer these questions. And while there will always be uncertainty, we are learning a great deal about our coastal habitat, and how the animals within it persist from generation to generation.

Every November, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) throws their big "State of the Green Building Industry" gathering, the Greenbuild International Conference and Expo.  This week, the 25,000 or so attendees are converging on Boston, packing the local convention center to the gills for three days of speakers and panels, educational and LEED training courses, and a truly massive product and business expo.  

Let's start with the forgettable:  the Expo.  I'm sure that for the builders and architects and trade specialists (who, after all, this event is really catering to), there's plenty to be learned, scores of connections to be made, and lots of potential business to be found in the vast field of 800-plus exhibitors that coated the enormous exposition hall.  There are LEED consulting companies, builders, designers, trade groups and more building product manufacturers than you could ever digest.  The latter--which make of the lionshare--are a loose and not-particularly-well-vetted collection of building supply products, plenty of which seem to be of questionable "green" value.  A couple of exhibitors that I spoke with--one from a building firm, the other a countertop maker, neither of whom wished to be pinned to this statement--claimed that of the products shown at the Expo, about 25-percent seemed "legit," the other three-quarters representing some degree of greenwashing.  (Treehugger has an interesting post up on this.) 

It's hard to fault Greenbuild for this--and the 25-percent figure is pure conjecture--as the exhibitor fees are no insignificant chunk of the conference's income, and help the USGBC (a non-profit, it should be noted) push their vision and book some truly impressive speakers.  

On that note--this year, Greenbuild has aimed to reach outside of its trade-industry silo.  From the opening remarks, it was particular exciting to hear of the USGBC's newfound commitment (or, at least, newly annunciated commitment) to social equity.  Apparently the Council has recently added a formal plank to their governing platform and altered their mission statement to reflect the importance of an inclusive focus on social equity.  This was best reflected in Greenbuild's first day by the lineup of speakers and panel themes that prove once and for all that "green building" is in no way strictly a "white" discipline.

So after a performance by the African Children's Choir came the much-anticipated keynote address by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the South African civil rights and religious leader who helped bring about the end of apartheid in South Africa.  The Archbishop spoke of Obama's election, and the importance of remembering those less privileged--not only the world's most destitute, but those who are quietly suffering here in America, lower class, marginalized communities who couldn't care less about a LEED score, but for whom energy bills are a nightmare lived daily.  

I've seen Van Jones, who spoke in an early afternoon slot, a few times now, and every time he brings the house down.  Jones is the founder of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and, more recently, Green For All, a "national organization dedicated to building an inclusive green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty."  (You can watch Jones' talk here.)

Jones took some time to diagnose the current economic problem by defining three simple fallacies that we've build our economy on:  

1. We can have an economy that can run forever based on consumption, rather than production.
2. We can have an economy powered by debt but not savings and thrift.
3. We can run the economy based on environmental destruction, rather than environmental restoration.  

Then, thankfully, he prescribed some solutions:

1. Put a cost on pollution, specifically a price on carbon.  "We need to stop paying the polluters, and start making the polluters pay."   
2. We need to retrofit America.  With this solution, Jones offered perhaps the best line of the conference (and, dare I say, the best line yet of the emerging "green collar" economic movement): "The first high tech tool of a new green economy is the caulk gun."  Energy efficiency is clearly the lowest hanging fruit in "greening" up the American built environment, but it also creates good, career-track jobs and saves homeowners money on heating and electric bills.  That's not to mention that home energy retrofits pay for themselves in a short few years. 
3. Lastly, we need a new national "smart grid."  (I wrote about the smart grid for GOOD a few weeks back.) It's the highest priority breakthrough that needs to happen--the backbone upon which a clean energy economy can grow.  We have "the Saudi Arabia of wind" in the Plains states and a "Saudi Arabia of solar power" in the Sun Belt, but the current grid can't connect those potential power sources to that urban population centers that have the highest energy demands.  Basically, Jones proposeds, we need an Apollo-scaled research and development effort to figure this smart grid out.

It's significant--and not lost on Jones--that all three of these solutions are described on the website of the President-Elect.  

Jones spent the most time on the second solution, as in the "retrofitting" of America lies the biggest potential for providing job opportunities to disadvantaged communities and helping create pathways out of poverty.  Before leaving the stage, Jones recognized the work of a number of non-profit, community organizing groups that are working to develop job training programs for underprivileged urban youth.  To train them to caulk windows, perform home energy audits, blow in non-toxic insulation, install double-paned windows, put solar panels on rooftops--to prepare them for the estimated two million jobs that are imminent as we begin the long, productive task of retrofitting America.  

Up next: Majora Carter and a panel on "The Greener Good" show more examples of the marriage between the green building movement and social equity. 

 

It is easy to question the real effectiveness or value of protest. A bunch of people holding signs in the cold, shouting awkward rhymes and marching seems to do little but re-enforce the stereotype of whiny liberals. Besides, the people in the passing cars are not in any position to accommodate your demands. So why bother? Why is community organizing and public protest such a crucial part of something as big as the fight on global warming? Wouldn’t it be better if we all stayed home, wrote e-mails to our representatives, and saved the gas?

No.

Without public visibility for a cause, people cannot see the energy behind it. People committed to a cause devote vast amounts of time and energy, but without a public display of those efforts, others may not realize so many are committed to an issue.  There are two sides to the fight on global warming, the public and the personal. It is of critical importance that we all do our part as individuals to be conscious of our energy use and waste, and remain proactive in pressuring our politicians to act on climate legislation. Without this commitment of personal time and energy, there really would be no point behind group sign waving in the streets. But the sign waving becomes essential when it is backed up with real action. Gaining a public venue to raise salience for an issue is just as important as the day-to-day mundane commitments to a greener community, and arguably lot more fun. Activism has a lot more glamour and zeal about it than sorting recycling or making carbon audits. It keeps people motivated to know that they are one of many, and may incite others to action as well. Everyone wants to feel like they are part of something bigger than themselves, and this is exactly what this type of community organizing is meant to communicate. The more of us they see, maybe the more of us there will be.

Gathering for local events like protests and lectures creates awareness for a cause in your local community, where you have the most power to act. Community organization also galvanizes people who live together to work together. People can share and coordinate resources, creating broader networks of support and knowledge. Today I attended a local rally for a global network, known as 350 (see 350.org), a global climate awareness group that takes its name from the highest safe concentration of C02 in our atmosphere, 350 parts per million (We are currently at about 385ppm, and inching higher). Our group of twenty something from Bard College was joined by almost 200 members of the Hudson valley community, including local politicians, church members, children and college students. We share a cause and we share a community, now we share our resources. As a result of today’s meeting, the Bard Environmental Collective is in touch with local colleges about their efforts to green their campuses, learning from each other’s mistakes and sharing our successes.

Standing in the street will never save the world alone, but our collective actions will, and nothing else. Any manifestation of collective efforts only serves to reaffirm and encourage those efforts, rallying support and building community bonds to achieve a common goal. The clichéd old mantra, ‘think globally, act locally’ rang true in the Hudson valley last Sunday, as local activists joined millions in a global cause. The 350 organization is gathering pictures of local events to send to the next UN panel on climate change. Our group’s photos will join others from places as far flung as India and South America, echoing the global cry that one number represents a sustainable future for us all.

Part of the change Americans just voted for in overwhelming numbers was to move away from the failed energy philosophy of "drill, baby, drill" to a more farsighted strategy, emphasized by Barack Obama, based on clean, renewable energy and efficiency. Yet on the very day that we raised our voices for change, the Bush administration dragged us in the opposite direction.

The Bureau of Land Management cynically chose November 4 to announce a last-minute plan to lease huge swaths of majestic wilderness in eastern Utah for oil and gas extraction one month before President-elect Obama takes office.

As its clock runs out, the Bush administration also is trying to open-up drilling all over the Rockies and Alaska, to green-light oil shale leasing, and to weaken the Endangered Species Act.  Though sad, it's no surprise, coming as it does from the same crowd that designed a misguided national energy policy in secret meetings with the oil, gas and coal industries.

The BLM didn't just try to slip the audacious Utah lease maneuver past the American people on an historic election day, it actually hid the ball from its sister agency, the National Park Service, and then rejected the Service's request for more time to review the scheme.

Among the 360,000 acres to be auctioned for industrial development is pristine land near Canyonlands National Park, adjacent to Arches National Park and Dinosaur National Monument.  This Christmas gift to the dirty fuel industry includes parts of Desolation Canyon, named in 1869 by the explorer John Wesley Powell, which has been proposed for national park status. In fact, the BLM itself described Desolation Canyon nine years ago as "a place where a visitor can experience true solitude -- where the forces of nature continue to shape the colorful, rugged landscape."

Words alone cannot do justice to the beauty of these places, but they do capture the absurdity of the Bush plan.  Oil and gas drilling in Desolation Canyon?  Industrial development along the meandering Green River?  The thought makes one wince.

The Obama transition team already has signaled its opposition to the leases, and said that once in office the Obama administration will try to reverse them.   Let's hope that's possible.  Utah's eastern expanse is one of America's few remaining wilderness treasures. It's our land, it's our legacy, but will it still be here for our children and grandchildren?  We made our wishes about that known loudly and clearly on election day.

We voted to take control of our own destiny by breaking our addiction to dirty fuels. We voted to re-power America with clean energy from wind, solar and geothermal power. We voted to use of our greatest resource, American ingenuity, to build economic, energy and climate security, and to preserve our natural heritage.  Yes we did.  And yes we can.

Update:  Go to NRDC's BioGems website to take online action to save America's Redrock wilderness.

------ 

Robert Redford, an actor, director and environmental activist, is a Trustee of the Natural Resources Defense Council and is the founder of Sundance, in Utah.

With a new administration months away, and a frenetically urgent sense that something big is about to happen, it is likely that bold new energy proposals will be heard in the halls of the capitol this coming year. Any improvement on the status quo should be lauded, and because of this it is easy to sweep the flaws under the rug in the rush to redecorate. We must be careful and deliberate in choosing the best way to reduce our carbon output, both environmentally and economically. To date, there have been two widely recognized and debated systemic approaches to fighting global warming. The 'cap-and-trade' system, and the carbon tax. I think we will see some variation or combination of these proposals come out of Washington in the Obama administration, and it is of critical importance that we make the right choice. Tax increases are considered legislative suicide on the hill, especially in our current economic circumstances, but when both systems are scrutinized, the carbon tax is the most comprehensive and effective way to reduce C02 emissions across all sectors of the economy. Consider the following paper I wrote for a political science class last semester dealing with cap and trade vs carbon taxes. A tax is the only comprehensive and effective solution to create a real power shift in how America and the world gets its energy. Tell your representatives you will support their vote for a carbon tax if a bill makes it to the floor- they will need all the encouragement they can get!

A re-shaping of the fundamental values inherent in our consumer culture is necessary to transform our society from one of waste and excess to a sustainable global community. The beginning of this value transformation is changing the way the global market deals with greenhouse gas emissions, especially in the energy and transportation markets. These markets today do not take into account the negative externalities associated with production, one of which is the greenhouse gases (including CO2) released into the atmosphere with the burning of fossil fuels. The modern market and its prices, therefore, do not reflect the true cost of production, because these externalities have a dramatically increasing cost for society in the form of global warming. Without finding a way to effectively incorporate these heavy costs into the market, our consumption will continue to be inefficient and remain part of the problem instead of a road to a solution in the climate crisis. 

     
There is little debate anymore that humans are warming the planet by releasing a slew of greenhouse gases. Although there is no exact scientific model, most agree that without a serious reduction in CO2 emissions the human race will face devastating consequences in the not-so-distant future. There have been many proposed actions to combat global warming from both intergovernmental and state agents, and virtually all of them include some variation of the two primary schemes for regulating CO2 emissions from energy sources: a cap-and-trade system and/or a carbon tax. Despite the vast economic differences in these two policies, their ultimate objective is largely the same: to put a price on carbon, thereby limiting emissions and spurring development of alternative energies. Policymakers around the world agree that setting a price for carbon is the key to transitioning the world market to a sustainable model, but the debate over cap-and-trade vs. carbon tax is as complex as the proposals themselves. Both approaches have their pros and cons, and a careful analysis of both is necessary to determine which is the best option for our energy future. In comparing these two policy proposals, I will argue that a carbon tax is the most effective and practical way to reduce emissions, and though a cap-and-trade system may be a more politically feasible first step, its limitations will prevent it from providing the real reductions in carbon emissions we need to secure the future of our planet for all mankind.

In order to understand the effectiveness of either proposal, a careful examination of the components of each is necessary. Under a cap-and-trade system, a maximum total limit (cap) on emissions is mandated, and the regulating body then issues permits for the right to pollute. In the case of CO2 emissions, permits may be issued on a per-unit basis of 1 ton of carbon dioxide. Permits may be held by anyone, but they are typically granted to major polluters, such as power companies and utilities in energy-intensive industries. The permits are either auctioned off or given freely to polluters, and the permits are then traded. The trading occurs when one polluter facing low reduction costs can meet its target emissions reductions and sell its excess permits to a polluter facing higher costs for reducing its emissions. Through this trading process, the permits will attain a value based on the supply and demand influences of the free market, making the price of a ton of carbon reflective of the energy market’s demands at any given time. This price and emissions flexibility allows the market to reduce emissions in the most cost-effective manner; companies facing high costs can offset these by buying additional permits, while cleaner companies can profit by trading permits. This makes a cap-and-trade system a more appealing solution for the business world, and it has been advocated by many businesses and CEOs, most notably the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, which includes 33 major U.S. corporations, including the top ten companies of the fortune 500 list and many major polluters like Duke energy and Exxon Mobil. Their “A Call to Action” plan, submitted to the president, calls a cap-and-trade program “essential”. (USCAP A Call to Action pdf online). Corporate CEOs are being joined by other prominent figures like state governors in support of the cap-and-trade system.

Some states are already undertaking a cap-and-trade for greenhouse gases in the absence of decisive federal action. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI, is comprised of ten states in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions (every state in both regions is involved except Pennsylvania) who have agreed to cap emissions at 2009 levels and reduce them 10% by 2019 (www.rggi.org). Many governors involved in this program are also calling for a 100% auction of pollution permits, a decision that would require companies to pay for the right to pollute instead of being given permits for free. State-led initiatives like RGGI (affectionately nicknamed ‘Reggie’ by some) are putting pressure on the Federal government to act quickly. As varied plans to cap greenhouse gases spring up across the nation, economists like Ian W.H. Parry and William A. Pitzer of Resources for the Future point out, this “patchwork approach” will become “cumbersome for business” operating nationally (“Combating Global Warming” p. 19).

Despite a lack of national legislation, the Feds are not completely inert on this issue. There have been many proposals for a cap-and-trade system from the House of Representatives and the Senate; there are currently eight different proposals that all include some form of cap-and-trade program. These bills are sponsored by a slew of prominent politicians from both parties, including Barbara Boxer, John McCain, Joe Lieberman, John Kerry and Arlen Specter. (UCS online chart). Advocates argue that the cap-and-trade system is the most economically sound approach to fighting global warming because of the flexibility it gives to businesses in emissions reductions, and its effectiveness is enhanced by the clear limits it sets on greenhouse gases through an emissions cap, a feature the tax approach lacks.

Some proposals for a cap-and-trade system include a feature known as a ‘safety valve’, where the government issues additional permits if permit price spikes as a result of high demand. This feature is controversial, however, as many argue that a safety valve would undermine the effectiveness of a firm cap on emissions by allowing polluters to pollute above the cap if the market becomes stressed. Some point out that this also opens up the potential for polluters to use even more energy to force the government to issue additional permits. The safety valve is beneficial from an economic point of view, however, since it provides some safety net for runaway permit prices that could otherwise have damaging economic effects by creating a shortage in energy supply and cause prices for consumers to skyrocket. This scenario is not common, however, and the safety valve feature creates the potential for increasing the basic problem instead of solving it. Our excess energy consumption is what is driving pollution from the energy industry, and the ultimate goal of the cap-and-trade system creates is to promote a more sustainable pattern of consumption that works to conserve energy. Limiting supply and raising prices is the most economically effective way to achieve this effect.

An additional price-control mechanism that has been proposed for the cap-and-trade system is known as borrowing, where companies facing high immediate costs can ‘borrow’ additional permits from other companies or the government in exchange for making more drastic reductions in the future to compensate. This has obvious complications, however, since it allows short-term goals of emissions reductions to fall to the wayside in favor of keeping producers economically comfortable, and does little to ensure that emissions targets will be met in the future.

Another crucial and highly debated detail of the cap-and-trade system is the decision to auction permits to polluters or give them freely. Many prominent groups, including the Union of Concerned Scientists, argue that a 100% permit auction is a key component of an effective cap-and-trade system because it creates a pool of money that goes to the government (as opposed to remaining in the private sector as profits from trades) that can then be used to subsidize alternative energy industries or offset increased consumer energy costs through tax breaks for low-income households (ucsusa.org). But once the government collects the revenues, the issue of where to spend them becomes controversial. There are many economists and legislators who are worried that alternative industries who receive the benefits of these revenues through subsidies may not prove worthy of their investments, and the government will waste a great deal of money that could have otherwise been spent on improvements within the well-established private industry sector. This is not the only issue that comes into play in the permit auction debate. Polluting companies can logically be expected to pressure the government to provide the permits for free, not only to save themselves a great expense but also on behalf of savings for their consumers. Any increased expense the companies face in reducing their emissions will be passed on to consumers in the form of higher energy prices. The already powerful energy industry lobby has the argument for protecting consumers and the economy on its side. The idea of free permits is also a big selling point for advocates of cap-and-trade policies because it provides a form of ‘compensation’ to the energy industry for the economic burdens re-vamping the industry will inevitably create, and anyone familiar with effective lawmaking knows it is all about compromise and compensation.

Within this debate also emerges the issue of how to distribute the permits among polluters. If the permits are given away for free, how do you determine who gets them? Programs in the past, such as the cap-and-trade system implemented to fight SO2 emissions associated with acid rain, granted permits to polluters based on their emissions history, the most permits going to those with the highest emissions. This has drawn criticism from many in recent debates, since it essentially awards heavy polluters with the most permits, and some fear that companies will initially increase their emissions in order to be granted a larger share of the permits from the government. The issue of political favoritism also comes into play here; with a commodity as valuable as emissions permits on the line, larger companies may pull all the political strings at their disposal in order to be granted a greater number of permits, opening the permit market to a vast potential for corruption. This corruption is not limited to the political aspect of permit allocations. Permit trading can be vastly profitable for companies that can reduce their emissions, and without tight monitoring and corporate transparency, companies can make a lot of cash without making large reductions in their emissions. As Yale economist William D. Nordhaus puts it “there are very poor intrinsic incentives for honesty in a cap-and-trade system. The purchasing unit gets a permit whether or not any true reductions take place by the selling unit”, and this applies vice versa for the selling unit’s profits as well (Life After Kyoto: Alternative Approaches to Global Warming Policy p. 19).

The traditional cap-and-trade model is most easily applied to heavy polluting industries like electricity and chemical production, where polluting facilities are easy to identify and regulate, and a relatively small number of companies control these facilities. But in order to be effective in capping all CO2 emissions, the cap-and-trade model would have to be extended to include a broader range of economic sectors, including housing and transportation. In order to be truly effective, the cap-and-trade program would have to be re-worked to include a much wider range of economic sectors than the traditional model includes. To date, no politically viable and effective cap-and-trade system has been devised to address all economic sectors. If a comprehensive plan were developed, applying it would impose far greater administrative costs, since the government would be responsible for regulating a much more complicated system with the addition of multifaceted industries like transportation or housing, which are much harder to regulate than an industry like electricity, concentrated in a relatively small number of plants.
           

Although most Americans are not familiar with the economic subtleties of a cap-and-trade system, many polls suggest that a majority of Americans approve of measures that would create the kind of industry regulation that a cap-and-trade would impose. In a recent Gallup Poll, 75% of those surveyed said they thought the government should “restrict emissions from cars and industrial facilities such as power plants and factories” to reduce global warming. In a Newsweek poll, 57% of those surveyed responded that “lowering the amount of greenhouse gases that power plants are allowed to release into the air” should be “required by law”, and 62% responded the same in a joint poll conducted by ABC News/Washington Post/Stanford University. Americans are also aware of the source of greenhouse gases; according to the same joint poll, 54% agreed that global warming is caused by “industry and cars” (pollingreport.com).  These statistics suggest fairly high popular support for initiatives aimed at reducing and regulating greenhouse gases from industry, especially the energy and transportation sectors. The cap-and-trade system is an initiative aimed at doing just that, so it has the advantage of likely public support were it to become law.
           

The second major policy option takes a very different tact. The basic structure of a carbon tax would levy a fixed tax on fossil fuels based on the amount of CO2 released when a unit of that fuel is combusted. This means that carbon-intensive fuels like coal, which are relatively cheap now, would become more expensive because the high amounts of carbon they release when burned (or carbon released in their production, as in the case of biofuels, known as ‘closet carbon’) would be factored into their cost by the tax. Gasoline and other oil-based petroleum products would also become more expensive to burn, although not as much as coal, and fuels with lower CO2 outputs like natural gas or solar would become more price competitive. Determining the value of this tax per ton of carbon is obviously the key issue when considering a carbon tax, and at this point (in the absence of any serious administrative debate on implementing such a tax) there is only speculation as to what this price should be. According to Resources for the Future, an economist’s view of what the tax should be would reflect the cost of the damage the negative externalities from GHG gases would impose. Since the impact of these damages is greater as more and more gases are emitted into the atmosphere, the value of the tax should slowly increase over time as the cumulative effect of burning fuel dramatically increases the potential impact of these externalities. This cost is obviously very complex and tremendously difficult to calculate, but “most mainstream economic assessments value the damages from today’s emissions at around $5-$15 per ton” (rff.org). This is a rough estimate, and many argue that more factors influence the cost and it can reasonably be considered much greater if “ecological effects, the well being of future generations, or the risk of abrupt climate change” are taken into account (rff.org). According to an article in the New York Times, “the general consensus in the energy business is…a charge that could start at $10 per metric ton or more”. Taking this price range into consideration, it is useful to compare the costs of energy sources under a hypothetical tax to see the changes in the economics of energy. When coal burns, it produces 1.9 pounds of CO2 per kilowatt-hour. Natural gas produces about .84 pounds of CO2/Kwh. Without any price on CO2, a kilowatt-hour produced from coal costs about 5.7 cents. “At $10 a ton, the impact is minimal. But at $50 a ton… the cost of a kilowatt hour from coal goes from about 5.7 cents to 10 cents”. Cleaner technologies like wind and solar power are very expensive (a photovoltaic Kwh can range from 25-30 cents) and therefore are not economically viable when compared with coal, but with a double digit carbon tax in the range of $25-$50 per ton, these cleaner alternatives have “a much larger chance of being relevant”(NYT Nov. 7 2007). When price competitive, alternative fuels have the potential for even further reductions in cost as the market demand shifts to increase production, leading to further development in technology and decreased per-unit production costs through economies of scale (increase in production leads to a decrease in long-run production costs).
           

The most cost effective way to tax carbon is to implement the tax as far ‘upstream’ as possible- meaning as close to the source of the fuel as one can get. This means fuels would be taxed at their point of distribution into the market- as it leaves the mine for coal and natural gas, as it comes off the tanker or from the wellhead for oil, and as its pumped from the refinery for ethanol. This would greatly reduce the administrative costs in administering such a tax, since the carbon content of every fuel is known and the volume of fuel in the market is easily calculated by monitoring the source directly. This would also create an even distribution of the tax cost throughout the market. Suppliers would simply increase the cost of their raw product to offset the cost of the tax to those further down the supply chain and ultimately to consumers. This upstream approach to levying a carbon tax makes it much more effective than a cap-and-trade system at reducing greenhouse gas emissions across all sectors of the economy, because a tax of the fuel at its source applies the tax to all sectors of the economy that use fossil fuels. The tax approach has a much broader scope than a traditional cap-and-trade program, which in its most politically viable form only applies to industries like electricity and chemical production.
           

One of the greatest advantages of a carbon tax is the fixed price it gives to carbon emissions across all economic sectors and markets. Fossil fuels are taxed based on their carbon content, which is known, and therefore the price of a ton of carbon does not fluctuate or change unless by administrative adjustment. This is crucial for investors and economists, since knowing the price of carbon in the long run is a key factor in determining the investment potential of any given technology or area of the market. Having a fixed price on carbon gives certainty to the price competitiveness of various fuels, greatly increasing investor confidence and allowing economists to make market predictions with greater certainty. This feature is absent from the cap-and-trade scenario, where price volatility is commonplace. For example, the European Union’s Trading Scheme has seen dramatic fluctuations in the price of carbon permits. Regulators made the mistake of granting polluters too many permits over time, and “prices have collapsed from about $38/ton in 2004 to [a recent average] of $1.40” (SFGate.com) The well-known Yale economist William D. Nordhaus sums up the problem of price volatility in the cap-and-trade market very well in economic terms “Carbon prices are likely to be extremely volatile because of the complete inelasticity of supply of permits in the quantity case along with the presumption of quite inelastic demand for permits in the short run” (p. 15). He goes on to point out the extreme volatility of cap-and-trade markets in the past, using the example of the SO2 permit market in the US, which he claims are “more volatile than oil prices or stock-market prices”(p.15).
           

Like the cap-and-trade approach, one of the biggest debates with the issue of a carbon tax is what to do with the revenues the legislation would generate. A major advantage of the carbon tax on this front is that its revenues would be going entirely to the government under all circumstances, and since there is no market for private gain created by a tax, the issues of corruption and incentives for dishonesty that exist under the cap and trade approach are all but eliminated (save a new form of tax evasion, of course). The ability of special interests like energy companies or oil producers to manipulate a tax system in their favor is dramatically low compared to a cap-and-trade scenario. But what should the government do with the revenues once they are collected? A popular theory on this point involves the implementation of a ‘tax shift’ by using the revenues from the carbon tax to offset another form of taxation, like the federal income tax or housing taxes and mortgage rates. This is widely suggested by carbon tax advocates for several reasons. First, it makes the tax more palatable for everyone by offsetting the hardships of increased gas and energy prices by reducing the burden of the income tax or some other tax. This would effectively make the carbon tax ‘revenue neutral’ for the government, meaning that the government would not profit by the tax, but instead all the money generated would be poured directly back into the economy and the bank accounts of consumers by paying them back part of their income tax. Tax dollars could also be pumped into alternative fuel industries or technology development in the form of subsidies and grants, leading to further development of cheaper low-carbon fuels, which may lower the burden of the carbon tax over time by increasing availability of low-carbon technology. The tax could also be used to provide greater assistance to low-income families who would be hit hardest by the increase in fuel and energy prices (under both cap-and-trade and tax scenarios), either by helping them to become more energy-efficient or by alleviating a greater portion of their tax burdens. Al Gore, in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, called for a carbon tax that returns the revenues to the people: “And most important of all, we need to put a price on carbon — with a CO2 tax that is then rebated back to the people, progressively, according to the laws of each nation, in ways that shift the burden of taxation from employment to pollution. This is by far the most effective and simplest way to accelerate solutions to this crisis”(Al Gore, Dec. 2007).
           

One of the greatest critiques of the carbon tax is just that- it’s a tax. Taxes are vastly unpopular in the government and with the public. They are virtually impossible to approach on Capitol Hill, especially among republicans, and many legislators see them as political suicide. The tax also lacks the key feature of compensation that a cap-and-trade system (with free permit allocation) has in its favor to gain industry support. This makes the tax even more unlikely to be politically viable, as the lobbying power of industry in the government is strong. The public visibility and simplicity of taxes, while arguably a benefit for their implementation from an administrative point of view, actually plays against them in the eye of the public. The complexity of a cap and trade program partially obscures the cost to the public from view, but with a tax the price hikes are clear and this contributes to their unpopularity. In a poll from June 2007, 58% of those surveyed said they would oppose a federal tax increase on gasoline to fight global warming. In the joint poll cited earlier, 79% responded they would oppose a tax on electricity “so people would use less of it”, and 67% responded they would oppose a gas tax with the same aim (pollingreport.com). To some extent, people are right to believe that a tax on gasoline is not in itself going to make people consume less- demand for gas and electricity are fairly inelastic, meaning their demand is not dramatically altered by change in price, but a tax would cause a shift in the market as a whole, thereby influencing consumer behavior. These polls clearly show the strong public opposition to direct taxation, yet ironically enough, other polls show a majority of people supported regulations on power plants similar to a cap-and-trade program. The higher prices would be passed on to them from the power companies, raising the price much like a tax would, but people are more averse to the price increase if it is applied to them directly by the government.
           

Despite the unpopularity of taxes, many prominent figures have recently come out in support of a carbon tax, from both political parties and various professions. Most notable among them is former vice president Al Gore, who stated a carbon tax was “most important of all” in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, and the IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change), who received the prize along with Gore, has also spoken out in favor of a tax. Prominent economists like Greg Mankiw, former chief economic advisor to the Bush administration, and Yale economist William D. Nordhaus, have also voiced support for the tax. Some unlikely supporters have also popped up in our current government- John Dingell has actually put forth the only carbon tax proposal to date (although some are skeptical about its legitimacy), and in an article he wrote for the Washington post, he lists some other supporters as diverse as they are improbable- from Gary Becker (arch-conservative and CEO of the US’s largest auto dealer chain) to Alan Greenspan and Greenpeace (washingtonpost.com). New York mayor Michael Bloomberg has also spoken out in favor of the tax (NYT Nov. 2 2007) Activist groups like the Carbon Tax Center have become more vocal recently in garnering support for the tax, and support is indeed growing. In a Nov. 2nd 2007 New York Times article, an economist remarked “The irony is that there is a broad consensus in favor of a carbon tax everywhere but on Capitol Hill, where the “T” word is anathema” (NYT 2nd Nov. 2007). With this growing and influential group of support, the carbon tax has a rising chance of overcoming the tax stigma and emerging as the most sensible option for fighting global warming. Even the American public may not be an impossible sell on the tax issue- a poll from Pollingreport.com found that 42% of people thought that the costs of effectively reducing global warming would be “high but worth it”, and only 17% responded that the cost would be “too high”.
           

The greatest limitation of a carbon tax is its political improbability in the short run, but growing support from many sectors indicates this may not be the case forever. A ‘green tax shift’ may be a feasible political reality as early as the next presidential term. The cap-and-trade approach, although more politically practical, and from an industry standpoint less economically disruptive, will not provide the reductions in GHG’s we need in order to eschew the worst effects of global warming in the future. It is not as far-reaching as a tax, limited largely to industry, and expanding its capabilities to provide a firm cap on all forms of emissions would require a re-thinking of the cap-and-trade approach, requiring complex, time consuming and expensive government oversight and administrative cost to be effective. The potential for manipulation by ‘special interests’ like the powerful energy and oil industries and permit profiteering also dramatically undermines cap-and-trade’s effectiveness as a concrete, long-term solution to emissions reduction, especially with industry-pleasing features like free permit allocations and a ‘safety valve’ already present in current proposals. The fixed price a tax would put on carbon could be applied as a stable, international ‘gold standard’, providing a much greater level of investor confidence and economic predictability in the increasingly sensitive and volatile energy market; a powerful and positive tool to creating a stable and sustainable energy future for our growing, energy-hungry world. The opposite scenario has been observed in several cap-and-trade programs, with dramatic price volatility a common feature. When applied to carbon, this could lead to economic upheaval further down the road when global emissions become an increasingly sensitive economic issue for the world market. The short term improbability of a carbon tax and the traditional unpopularity of taxes in American politics is an economic reflection of the core problems in our fundamental consumer values- Americans are unwilling to make sacrifices to their decadent consumer lifestyle in order to create real change. But faced with the increasingly devastating threat that global warming poses, many are starting to change their tune. A recognition that we need to change the way we live, at least until we can live sustainably, is emerging in popular culture. The will to create this change will determine when proposals for real change like the carbon tax shift will reach a tipping point of support in our country and the world. With a close consideration of the facts and proposals at hand, this will can be created in the minds of rational Americans, and to quote one of my favorite Gore-isms, “Political will is a renewable resource”.

I've never been a vegetarian --- not quite --- though for the first twenty odd years of my life I ate meat sparingly and mostly under duress.

I blame my budding vegetarianism on pacifist parents who looked on in amusement the summer that I decided it was immoral to kill anything. Soon thereafter, I spent a week in the Outer Banks of North Carolina stoically and gently brushing mosquitoes from my skin.

And now I'm a chicken killer and soon to become a deer killer. What happened?

The chicken or the egg?

It all started when I bought a few hens to provide eggs for my table. I slowly came to realize that vegetarians who eat eggs but not chickens are deluding themselves into believing they cause no pain to another living thing.

The cycle of egg production is rife with blood and gore, even assuming the chickens were raised humanely on pasture. After her first year or two of life, a hen's egg production begins to taper off and a new batch of hens must be raised to take her place. The old hens, who could live for another decade or so eating you out of house and home, are then slaughtered and eaten.

At the same time, the new hens which are being raised to take the old hens' place hatch from eggs which produce half males and half females. A good flock of chickens will have about one rooster for every ten hens, so the other nine roosters will go into the pot along with the old egg-layers. Basically, that seemingly pristine egg you just ate for breakfast sprang from a bloodbath.


Feeding the soil

So now I've probably scared all of the vegetarians in the crowd into taking the plunge into veganism. But consider this --- a healthy, self-sufficient organic garden is best fed with animal manure as well as plant-based composts.

I keep my chickens in tractors which I slowly move across soon-to-be garden sites. The chickens greedily eat weeds, scratch over-wintering pests up out of the soil to be ingested, and fertilize the soil in the process. After a few passes with the chicken tractor, the ground is ready to be turned into rich raised beds for next year's vegetable garden.

Just as vegetarianism often stems from a soul-searching moral decision, my new belief in eating meat is based on an expanded awareness of the agricultural ecosystem. Although steering clear of chickens while eating eggs gives many people the impression of guilt-free protein, I can't help but feel that the healthy agricultural ecosystem includes meat-animals. For me, life on the farm involves meat.

 

The author, her boyfriend, a cat, a dog, and their eleven chickens live on 58 acres of swamp and woodland in southwest Virginia. Their blog, The Walden Effect, documents their quest to live simply and grow their own food in harmony with the natural ecosystem.

 

Barack Obama has a historic opportunity to change the direction of our nation.  As two roads diverge in a red, white, and blue country, he must take the road less traveled on, instead of continuing the status quo. 

We have to be honest: our nation is in an energy crisis.  And nobody has shown more leadership and interest and interest in our nation's energy policy than Al Gore.  Al Gore made a bold challenge to "our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years." 

Al Gore's plan is as simple as it's bold.  Using clean alternative fuels (solar, wind, geothermal), energy efficiency, and a new energy grid he would solve some of our nations most pressing problems: high gas prices, our dependence on foreign oil, global warming, and the economic recession.  This realistic yet ambitious plan uses current technology and can be met through hard work and financing. 

Obama promised change.  Now he has the chance to prove it and restore America's energy leadership in the world. 

 You can follow this link to sign a petition to Obama to appoint Al Gore as head of the Dept. of Energy.

 http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/Gore

 

Light Emitting Diodes take energy-efficient lighting to a whole new level, and consumers are about to notice.

The design and manufacture of light emitting diodes has improved dramatically in the last few years, and other high-efficiency competitors like compact fluorescent lights will soon have to hand over the “green” crown. Because of their performance advantages over other available lighting technologies, LEDs are poised to dominate the lighting market within a decade.

Despite their high-tech reputation, LEDs have actually been around for a century. These electrically illuminated semiconductors were first developed in the early 1900s, but didn’t see practical usage until the 1960s when they began to appear in electronic displays (think giant digital calculators, or Neil Armstrong’s control panel). Design advances since then have led to far brighter LEDs, and diodes that can produce virtually any color light desired. But they’re still fairly expensive to manufacture when compared to other common light sources used in building applications. So why will LEDs soon become the top choice for commercial and residential lighting? Easy: They’re efficient, they’re durable, and they’re clean.

LEDs are far more energy-efficient at producing light than incandescent or even fluorescent lights. Unlike their competitors, LEDs actually convert most of their electrical consumption into usable light output instead of wasting it in the form of heat. Average current-generation LEDs are capable of approximately 50% more efficiency than equally bright fluorescent bulbs and more than double the efficiency of incandescents; some next-gen LEDs claim an 8-fold advantage over their incandescent rivals. An additional, indirect efficiency perk of LEDs is the lack of ambient heat generated – heat that no longer needs to be offset by ventilation or air-conditioning systems.

A second huge advantage of LEDs as a light source is their durability. Because of their sealed, filament-free design, they are not nearly as vulnerable to impacts or moisture as incandescent or fluorescent bulbs. And an LED’s lifespan is far beyond that of its competitors: whereas an incandescent bulb might last 1,000 hours or a fluorescent up to 10,000 hours, an LED can easily shine for 50,000 hours.

Finally, LEDs have a couple “clean” advantages over compact fluorescent bulbs. Besides being even more energy efficient (and therefore less polluting) than fluorescents, LEDs contain no mercury. As more homes and businesses switch from incandescent to fluorescent lighting, there are increasing concerns about the mercury from fluorescent bulbs winding up in landfills and waste disposal facilities. And along those same lines, there are worries about residents being exposed to hazardous materials in the event of a fluorescent bulb breakage.

So should we all get rid of our compact fluorescent lights today and fill our homes and offices with LEDs? Not quite yet. Fluorescent bulbs are still the best “green” option for the moment, since LED lights need a little more time before they’re ready for the mainstream. One factor still being refined is the quality of the light; just as fluorescents took a bit of tweaking before they evolved from harsh institutional lights to the nice soft lights we enjoy now, LED’s are still evolving to produce the amount and kind of light that consumers want to live with. But the biggest factor is the cost: even though long term power savings might make up the difference, an LED today can cost around $40, which is a eye-widening purchase price compared to a few dollars for a fluorescent bulb or a few cents for an incandescent. But in the next five to ten years, as design and manufacturing techniques improve, and as consumer confidence in LEDs grows, prices will certainly drop – and old-fashioned bulbs will just be a hot, dirty memory.

 

The buzz of the honeybee may soon be a thing of the past. Colony collapse disorder (or CCD) is a fancy term to refer to the recent decline in honeybee populations, a decline which has been scientifically documented but which stems from causes that are less well understood.

Although scientists aren't quite sure what's causing this sudden decline in honeybee populations, they are united in the opinion that loss of the honeybees will have profound implications on our agricultural system. Approximately a third of our food crops --- ranging from canteloupes to almonds --- depend on the honeybee for proper fruit set. Without the bee, flowers will wither unpollinated on the stalk and the farmer will have nothing to harvest.

I am concerned about CCD, but I am more concerned that this disorder is a symptom of the failure of America's industrial agriculture system. Our current system is built upon the pipe dream that we can have unlimited supplies of cheap food, that the finite capacity of the earth can be stretched with pesticides and synthetic fertilizers to feed an ever growing number of people on a dwindling expanse of arable land.

I have no data to back up this hunch, but I wonder what percentage of our maladies --- obesity, cancer, heart disease and other disorders which have spun out of control in recent decades --- can also be linked to cheap food. Does a broccoli head raised on farmed out soil doused with 10-10-10 really contain the micronutrients we need to keep our bodies strong, or does it merely make us crave more food because it lacks the unlabelled nutrients we really need?

I am struck by an article my great aunt Ruth Tirrell wrote decades ago in Organic Gardening and Farming Magazine. In "Insect Control in the Small Vegetable Garden", she mentioned many of the techniques organic gardeners currently use to tempt or scare pests away from their crops. But her overall message was more holistic. She admonished us to remember this:

"Pests don't harm healthy plants much. Healthy plants, the kind that grow in humus-rich, properly fertilized soil, may be preyed upon occasionally, but they can take it."

Can Aunt Ruth's holistic approach be used to remedy the collapse of our agricultural system, and even of our own bodies? Would honeybees thrive in an agricultural system which minimized pesticides, replaced fertilizers with compost, and separated vast tracts of farmland with frequent natural hedgerows? Would our bodies heal themselves if we took the time to eat broccoli picked fresh from our backyards and put on the table before the nutrients had time to decay?

The time has come for us to accept the finite nature of our earth. From growing our own food and learning to eat every part of pasture-raised animals to packing lunches rather than relying on fast food --- we must make changes in our lives before our ecosystem and bodies collapse.

 

The author, her boyfriend, a cat, a dog, and eleven chickens live on 58 acres of swamp and woodland in southwest Virginia. Their blog, The Walden Effect, documents their quest to live simply and grow their own food in harmony with the natural ecosystem.

Clearly there's no rest for the weary victors of the long presidential campaign. What seems like thousands of interest groups are jockeying for position on the new administration's agenda, evoking nothing somuch as a cloud of gnats billowing around the president-elect's head.

One of those is Canada's oil industry, which (via Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper) leapt forth last Wednesday with a proposal it is spinning as a "climate change pact" but is in truth an effort to lock in U.S. support for continuing rapid development of tar-sands oil from Alberta.

Well, as regular OnEarth readers will know, extraction and production of tar-sands oil carries some severe negatives. It releases three times the carbon emissions involved in conventional oil production. And it exacts a scorched-earth toll on the environment -- "remediation" of land after tar-sands extraction is a joke. My OnEarth colleague Ben Jervey explains further.

A quick trip around the web shows that few are buying Prime Minister Harper's gambit; let's hope the Obama administration takes a pass as well.

• New York Times blog Green Inc. provides a sober description of environmental concerns; good reader comments.
• On its Understory blog, the Rainforest Action Network says the Obama administration's reaction to this will be a litmus test of its willingness to challenge the oil lobby.
• DeSmogBlog's Jim Hoggan bought the spin a little too readily. Rapid tar sands development is just not compatible with any responsible energy/climate plan.
• Accidental Deliberations provides insider-y comments on the proposal in context of Canadian politics.
• TreeHugger posts a picture of Mordor... er, the Albertan tar sands, that's worth a thousand words. (Note: A "before" image would show old-growth boreal forest -- a huge carbon sink, clean-water resource, nesting grounds of 40 percent of North America's songbirds and waterfowl.)
• NRDC's Liz Barratt-Brown to the president-elect and the Congress-in-waiting: "Will our government continue to provide incentives to develop these high carbon fuel sources or will it put us on a path to develop a low carbon economy? We know that cleaner alternatives are available now, such as fuel efficiency, better public transportation, and renewable energy. And our latest national poll conducted on energy and gas prices shows us that almost 80% of Americans believe we need to switch to renewables too. We don't need these high carbon fuels as a "bridge" (giving new meaning to "bridge to nowhere"). We have the necessary technologies now to start to move America beyond oil."
• Jake Schmidt, NRDC international climate policy director, neatly skewers the Harper proposal.
• Finally, Al Gore's sweeping op-ed in yesterday's New York Times, "The Climate for Change," singles out tar-sands oil and other dirty fuels as the wrong path.

I found one more very interesting read on this subject: A long review in Vancouver independent The Tyee of Andrew Nikiforuk's new book "Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of the Continent." The book -- which grew out of Nikiforuk's OnEarth Magazine feature -- is a devastating indictment of oil sands development in Canada; a lot of the flavor comes through in this piece. Good reader comments here, too.

(Note: I cobbled together this batch of links with a neat web tool called Agglom; you can view all links as a slideshow or suggest that I add a new link.

[Ed note: We'd love to hear everyone's answer to this question.  What direction would you like to see America move?  What's your vision?  Share it with the Greenlight community, and then send it straight to the transitional team at Change.gov.]

Obama asks What is Your vision for the country now?  And I answer: I envision homes with solar paneled roofs, new electricity grids that retain energy more efficiently and spread that energy from wind farms, solar farms, tidal and geothermal sources farther across the nation. I envision new factories opening in small towns that are in need of new jobs that produce more efficient batteries for electric cars, photo-voltaic sheets for solar panels, and turbine blades designed to harness the wind without harming the birds in the area. I envision communities working together to raise awareness and promote change in how we use our energy, recycling, sustainability and conservation. I envision a whole new transportation system where communities join each other on public buses, trains or bicycle paths. Where these buses, trains and vehicles on the road are run on electricity, natural gas or biofuels. I envision schools where learning about our environment and how to live in tune with it is priority, along with science and technology continuing to lead innovation in working with Earth's resources in a non-destructive and useful manner. I envision America continuing to lead the world in this innovation and technological advancement, in production and implementation of clean and sustainable living and setting an example to be followed proudly by our fellow nations. I envision big change for America, for the World and for the way we live on this Earth.

I just knew Mother Nature would figure something out! The 6 Billion of us is such a tight squeeze on this planet, with our unsustainable ways!

Ecologists say that eventually climate change will shrink all species. They don't say so, but, well, wouldn't that include our own species?

It turns out the degradation of environments around the world due to climate change is limiting food availability, and as the result, smaller animals are doing better now than larger ones that need more resources. Warmer temperatures limits species size.

Bergmann's rule says that species size decreases as warmth increases. That's because smaller species can radiate heat better to adapt to warm temperatures. The tropics host smaller species. Larger animals have a lower surface-area-to-volume ratio, allowing them to retain more heat and fare better in a cold climate, smaller ones in warm climates.

As a result, "As the world gets warmer, species will shrink," says Wendy Foden, the World Conservation Union biologist studying the effects of climate change on species.

Another population biologist Andy Purvis says that dying early will also reduce size. He says all species will gradually evolve into smaller versions because as a result of climate change, they'll be coping with sudden changes in their environment and hence dying prematurely, leading to smaller offspring over time.

So this will make sustainability more attainable for our species, won't it?

Imagine if we had been only 1 foot tall from the get-go.

We'd now have far less impact on the planet's resources. We would have set sail for America - where we now tear through five planets-worth of resources- in a boat about the size of one large log.

But of course, this adjustment is going to be in the very, very, very long run.

If only Gaia had had the foresight to make this adjustment to the size of the intelligent ape a few million years earlier, we might not need five whole planets now to live the unsustainable way that we live now.

Art by Slinkachu

 

 

Deer vs. Nature

The biggest problem with the woods is the deer.  After being almost exterminated decades ago, white-tailed deer have rebounded in southern NY and in New England in general.  Every once in a while, some ambitious coyote will stalk a fawn, but the adults never feel anxious about the scrawny canines.  Their predators, wolves and pumas, have been gone for centuries, and aren't going to be back anytime soon.  The deer population has been exploding without bounds, simultaneously ravaging saplings and other native undergrowth, while benefiting invasive monocultures of garlic mustard, Japanese barberry and the Chinese tree of heaven.  Unless the deer are controlled, preferably by hunting, they will fundamentally damage the native biodiversity of local ecosystems.

In Westchester, a county of New York City suburbs, hunting is prohibited.  Many naïve "advocates of nature" think hunting is unnatural, or that it is cruel.  Well, get over it: hunting is a primal and necessary force of nature, and nature is cruel.  Since the apex predators are gone, we have to do their job instead.  And, for the safety of children and hikers, we don't have to let any yahoo with a gun go shooting in the woods behind someone's backyard; instead, why don't we let professional sharpshooters do the job?  This might cost a bit of money, but Westchester County has been spending lots of money already preserving land just to let the ecosystems be pillaged by raiding deer, and its time to fight back.  Unless we allow a natural deer cull, undergrowth plant species, saplings, the birds that nest in them, and ultimately the forests themselves will be in jeopardy.

There is a small woodlot, about five acres, in the Westchester town of Ardsley that it is overrun with these rats of the forest (deer).   The forest floor is carpeted with a thick overgrown lawn of garlic mustard, a European invasive-except for in a small swampy section.   A few deer resistant natives hold on to the forested hillsides--ferns, jack in the pulpits, Virginia creeper--but they are on the brink of disappearance.  A sunny field is overgrown with the Chinese tree of heaven, and clusters of Japanese barberry, a thorny shrub, are beginning to take hold in a few areas.  What do all these invasive have in common?  The deer don't eat them.  When their competitors are browsed close to annihilation by hordes of deer, they take advantage of the weakness, and out compete them.  The natives never stood a chance. Native plants have a hard time battling invasive plants normally, but with the deers' cooperation, the odds are grievously stacked against them.

On the other hand, there is another nearby wooded area, the Greenburg Nature Center, which is devoid of deer.  Invasives aren't absent from the Nature Center; however, they don't dominate the habitat or form dense monocultures.  Instead, they compete and coexist with natives more evenly.  Garlic mustard stalks mingle among wildflowers, grasses, other indistinct native underbrush, and a scattering of Japanese barberry bushes.  In a sunny former orchard, there are a few trees of heaven, but they do not have the upper hand against the maples, oaks, and cherries.  This ecosystem is not perfect, but it is relatively harmonious.  Without the ‘deer factor,' many native plants are able to successfully compete against invasives in southern New York.

What will happen if we decide not to control the deer population?  As many people can already see, the undergrowth will go first, the bushes, wildflowers and saplings.  Animals that depended on those plants, like certain birds, will disappear.  Over the long term, the destruction of saplings will end the regeneration of the forest, and as the trees fall, none will replace them.  Instead, we will be left with a brushy invasive tangle that would offer good shelter for deer, but not many other animals.   By then, the local ecosystem, the temperate forest, would become extinct, along with countless animals and plants that depended on it.

So let's cull a few deer.  It's unpopular, but it is essential.  Or else, we will let an ecosystem that took hundreds of millions of years to evolve be razed to the ground in less than twenty years.  And that would really be cruel.