Climate Science Correction and US Climate Bill Changes

Apparently scientists are not perfect. These two articles explain how sea levels will not rise as much as expected from melting ice, one is from the Canada Broadcasting Corporation and the other from the Christian Science Monitor.

Harvesting methane from cows is a double win for environmentalism and the economy, Resources for the Future explains.

Obama's climate change bill is watered down by industry. They always complain about environmental legislation reducing their profits, but their profits are found on degrading the environment, yet it is further complicated because human welfare has been made temporarily dependent on degrading the environment.

The CATO insitute has a short article on "Buy Local," it is an incomplete analysis for sure but opposing beliefs are worth our time.

Moving Forward

China burns the most coal out of any country and is taking steps to reduce their CO2 emissions while continuing to be crutched on coal energy. Their performance is not ideal, but it will be impactful.

One of Obama's budget cuts will be the hydrogen energy project. Bush II supported a hydrogen economy without acknowledging the obstacles, Obama is now stepping away from it to focus on more likely alternative fuels.

Solar energy harvesting technology is advancing, making it cheaper; cheaper than oil. This the point at which alternative fuels can overtake fossil fuels, when the market signals via price people respond, and in this case they stop using oil.

The Pika (a cute little mammal) might be listed as endangered due to global warming.

Technology leads the way

Later this year a very important UN Kyoto Meeting of the Parties will occur and many feel that this is our last chance to negotiate a global Climate Change agreement before it is too late and positive feed back mechanisms take over the global ecosystem, changing the earth's climate more than humans would like. Sweden is taking the lead as president of the European Union and will be the lead in the Climate Change negotiations.

The CATO institute is a libertarian organization and is void of a lot of Democrat Republican rhetoric so I enjoy their analyses, their commentary is sometimes disagreeable but their numbers are often spot-on. This article is about the economics of Obama's spending on increasing rail in the US. One note about this article, it states that electrical trains are a poor idea because we have coal fired power plants in America, but we are currently working on phasing out coal fired power plants and equipping them with carbon capture technologies, so i find their argument shallow.

This link is to a pdf so if you do not have the right software the link may not work. This report is made by the Oil Solutions Initiative and is titled "A Framework for Breaking US Oil Dependence."

Increasing energy efficiency for our appliances is being pushed right now and many do not like increased efficiency because it means more overall resource use. I would say that this is no condemnation of increasing energy efficiency because plenty of humans are still poor and want to use more energy, but already rich people using increases in energy efficiencies to use more is a problem.

The Economist provides a good commentary on energy grids in American and how they are changing.

Economic Localization?

I found this great website that helps you obtain a better understanding of where our food comes from. With the effort to localize agriculutre in the USA there has been some unsubstantiated rhetoric about "food miles," just because your food travelled more miles does not mean the environmental impact was worse. The inputs into the equation for the environmental impact of food transporation are: miles travlled by the food, efficiency and scale of transportation, the vehicle used for transportation and how many miles you traveled to purchase your food. In large scale agriculture food is shipped in large amounts and the fuel cost of shipping most products is 1% of the price of that product. There are other issues though that are not intrinsic to food miles, such as packaging, political context, the storage of food and the types of products that can be found on the global market.

This article titled "Avoiding the Local Trap" explains scale as a means not an end, and explores the validity of the food localization rhetoric. I support increased performance in our food system, and sometimes localization accomplishes that.

This article from Micheal Shuman highlights localization and is a primer for his book "Going Local."

I wish there was ample research on the "buy local" concept that was not a promotion or an attack and was simply an assessment of when localization increases some type of performance (environmental, social, etc) and in what situations localization has no effect or a negative effect.

This website is a local food advocacy organization and provides "buy local" information and resources, as well as the neccessary rhetoric to decorate their position.

Buying local is not an assurance of doing more for you community or environment, but it is often better then buying a highly packaged product made using toxic chemicals (check out the book "Body Toxic"). Since our economy is so globalized most efforts to localize will be better for society and the environment, but only because of the minimal scale of the effort and the fact that many large companies sell you products that do not have the full cost (negative externalities) of the product included in the price.

The New American Farmer

This link will bring you to a page that has another link to a pdf document of the book The New American Farmer. At the end of the first paragraph click on "view."

The New American Farmer is a collection of case studies of American farmers who are farming in a new way that could be labeled sustainable. It is easier to evaluate agriculture under the criteria of sustainability because farmers are dealing with the resources on their land (i.e. soil), and if they are depleting soil quality they will notice quickly.

The way forward

There are two noble goals that many people are striving for: environmentalism and sustainable development in the industrializing world. Accomplishing these goals at the same time will be difficult but not impossible.

The World Resources Institute asks: "Are Business and Industry Taking Sustainability Seriously?"

Transportation is such a large issue in environmentalism. Some people are optimistic about electrical cars and plug-in hybrids, others are skeptical. The Rocky Mountain Institute has some comments to make

The Rocky Mountain Institute also weighs in on "How to Design a Light, Big and Safe Car."

The Environmental Defense Fund makes a case for investing in Transit.

The world steps up to the Climate Change Challenge

The US is fast tracking climate change legislation in the federal Congress, US industry supports it, now only republicans that are repeating old arguments are the opposition and many republicans are giving up the old rhetoric so they can become involved in the shaping of the legislation.

China is investing more in renewable energy than the US and is figuring out how to become more environmental within Chinese Politics. But, the path will not be smooth as China steps away from their project of building the world's first"green city".

The British government has mandated that every coal fired power plant built from now on has to have a carbon sequestration device attached to it. This will raise the price of coal energy and clear the path for renewable energy to be cheaper for consumers. Also, the US is looking towards never building another coal fired power plant or nuclear power plant ever again.

The downturn is slowing and the world's leaders are looking to establish some permanent changes to create a more stable world economy. The recovery of the global market will decide the inertia for environmentalism and social justice. The world economy stabalizing is good for consumption and can be good for the environment, we will see the results in the next several decades.

Wave technology is developing; with large projects being started now they may be a cornerstone of our energy production in the next decade.