Featured Post

12/13/14

weo, wto

We need a World Environmental Organization analogous to the World Trade Organization.

12/10/14

dawn satellite

I think it would be cool to have a satellite moving in orbit directly above the ring of illumination separating day from night, so you could actually see dawn as it moves across the surface of the Earth.  Then you could have video cams at various locations to show the sun coming up there.  These would include major cities, but also important landscapes (dawn over the Urals, the Indian Ocean, the Rift Valley, etc.)

planetary consciousness

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_consciousness

10/22/14

short term and long term

The short-term goal is to get a serious carbon tax enacted.

The long-term goal is that the human population of this planet has to be cut.  If we want a world in which everybody can achieve a Western-style level of affluence, we can't get it with 7 billion of us on the planet.  I've read somewhere that to achieve that, we'd need four or five planet Earths to provide the necessary resources.

9/21/14

9/18/14

carbon tax center

Here's a link to the blog of the Carbon Tax Center, a New York-based group advocating-- you guessed it-- a carbon tax:

www.carbontax.org/blog/

Many of these posts are quite technical, but there are links, in particular, to comparisons of a carbon tax to cap-and-trade schemes.

8/12/14

the planetarian mindset

The main thing about planetarianism is that it should be a mindset that one takes with one throughout daily life.  One should wake up thinking about this little orb hurtling through space at 67,000 miles per hour and go to bed thinking about it.  During the day there should be countless reminders of it-- billboards, subway placards, photos in schools and offices.  The fact that we're all sitting on this little planet in the vast emptiness of the cosmos should never be far from our conscious minds.  Such a mindset could not help but have major political, social, and cultural ramifications.

7/31/14

is this a well-run planet?

This is the question planetarians must ask:  Is this planet well run?  What are the criteria for determining if a planet is well run, and how well do we measure up to those criteria?

7/21/14

justified optimism or the usual spin?

Paris 2015:

http://www.rtcc.org/2014/07/15/ideas-on-un-climate-deal-converging-says-german-environment-minister/

plus ca change?

Paris 2015:

http://www.rtcc.org/2013/11/28/un-climate-chiefs-agree-path-to-2015-looks-tough-post-warsaw/

paris 2015

I have one big question about the climate conference scheduled for Paris at the end of next year:  What plans are afoot to prevent it from turning out like the 2009 fiasco in Copenhagen?  Seriously, they must be doing some advance planning to try to prevent that outcome, but what?  I was even surprised they were having another major conference like this, after that last one.

6/25/14

be rude

The idea is that planetarians should always posit the best interests of the planet in various venues.  This may often be unwelcome.  Such venues might include:

.political meetings and races
.legislative hearings
.treaty negotiations
.shareholder meetings

Your contributions at these get-togethers may not be appreciated, but somebody's got to do it.  You've been nominated.

6/19/14

planetarians

What we need is a political force that explicitly puts the interests of the planet above everything else.  Environmental groups do this implicitly, but their actions are usually focused on narrower areas of concern.  Planetarians, on the other hand, always keep the big picture in view.  We’re saying it right upfront:  We put the interests of planet Earth above the interests of any one nation, and certainly above the interests of corporations.  The obvious area in which this is relevant is climate change.  This is a global problem that requires a global solution.

6/13/14

deep decarbonization

These are the eight goals of the 'Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project' (DDPP), a consortium of universities and think tanks in 13 major countries that is coming up with specific proposals for deep cuts in carbon emissions in preparation for the Paris climate conference next year:

************************************************

Fossil fuels:
Moratorium on development of new coal deposits and non-conventional fossil fuel reserves (e.g. oil sands, Arctic oil, deep-ocean oil, or methane hydrates) after 2015.
•Moratoriums to be lifted only in the event of possible large scale diffusion of point source CCS (for coal) or air CCS (for oil)

Power:
•No new coal-fired power plants licensed for construction after 2018 except with CCS (2025 for LICs)
•All existing coal-fired power plants retrofitted with CCS, or closed, by 2030 (2040 in LICs)
•Carbon intensity of power generation <100 g/kWh by 2050


Transport:
•All new personal vehicles sold after 2030 with zero tailpipe emissions, e.g. electric or fuel-cell power (2035 for LICs), and all commercial vehicles with electric, natural-gas power, or sustainable, low-CO2 biofuels

Housing:
•All new residential and commercial buildings heated by electricity or co-generation after 2025 (2035 for LICs)

Energy efficiency:
•Global standards on CO2 intensities for appliances and industrial processes by 2025 (2035 in LICs)

************************************************

My initial feeling about this, which lasted for several days, was that this was all basically impossible. It has occurred to me now, though, that what I meant was that this was POLITICALLY impossible, particularly in this country at this time. Just to take the first point: Put a moratorium on all new coal mining and 'non-conventional' (including fracking) fossil-fuel extraction BY THE END OF NEXT YEAR??!?! Im-bleeping-possible.
It's occurring to me now, though, that there's an interplay here between what's politically possible and what's technologically feasible. On the last point, for example, engergy efficiency, Jeffrey Sachs insists elsewhere that the technology is there to increase energy efficiency by a factor of five right now.
I won't attempt to break these claims down here, but just to say that what's politically possible will have a lot to do with what's technologically and economically feasible.

6/5/14

global carbon budget

This is from last fall, but it makes the central point about the importance of a 'global carbon budget.'  The thing to keep in mind is that (for all practical purposes) the total amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is cumulative.  It is this total amount, not the rate of emission, that determines the effect on the climate.  If we want to keep the global temperature increase below 2 degrees C, the total amount of gases cannot exceed a certain limit.  This is the basis for the IPCC saying that 75-80% of fossil fuel reserves must stay in the ground, forever.

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/ipcc-climate-change-report-contains-grave-carbon-budget-message-16569

5/19/14

king canute and the republicans

The message comes rolling down the centuries, from this medieval English king right up to the pedicured footsies of today's Republicans.
'Canute set his throne by the sea shore and commanded the incoming tide to halt and not wet his feet and robes. Yet "continuing to rise as usual [the tide] dashed over his feet and legs without respect to his royal person. Then the king leapt backwards, saying: 'Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings, for there is none worthy of the name, but He whom heaven, earth, and sea obey by eternal laws.''
Like, for example, the laws of physics? Could Canute have been talking to the Republicans about climate change?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Canute_and_the_waves


5/15/14

two big fat unsexy nouns

Latinate polysyllables don't have a lot of political 'oomph,' I suppose. But these two words, it seems to me are the crux of the enviornmental conundrum: Decarbonization and Overpopulation. Decarbonization is the only immediate rational way to mitigate global warming:
The IPCC says we have a 15-year window to decarbonize our energy regime.
Accepting the reality of overpopulation is the longer-term solution, both to warming and to unsustainability in general:
On these two words, as we used to say in church, hang all the Law and the Prophets.

5/7/14

national climate assessment

Well, the White House has just released the third iteration of the ‘National Climate Assessment.’  One wonders at what point a political critical mass will arrive actually so that we actually do something about climate change.  The IPCC report released last month indicated we need to ‘decarbonize’ our energy regime, and we have until about 2030 to do so if we’re to avoid the worst scenarios of climate change.  I like that word ‘decarbonize,’ though.  It makes it very specific what we need to do, and I find that very helpful.  What do you actually have to do to our energy system in order to start throwing a LOT less carbon into the atmosphere?  Energy efficiency is one thing—accomplishing the same task with less energy.  Switching to nonpolluting renewable energy is another—wind, solar, geothermal, possibly even nuclear.  But the big thing, politically, is that we’ve got to start making the fossil fuel companies PAY for the carbon their products are putting into the atmosphere; that’s right, we’re going to have to have a carbon tax.

There’s one other aspect of this situation that nobody wants to talk about:  overpopulation.  If you really want everybody to have a Western-style middle-class standard of living, you can’t do it with seven billion human beings on this planet—let alone the 10 billion or so that are estimated by 2050.   I think this needs to become part of the political discourse.  I would start at the local level, at the level of municipality, county, maybe state or small country.  The question is, are there too many people here?  How do we decide that?  If we decide there are too many people, what do we do about it?  Close down immigration?  Restrict childbearing?


4/9/14

world bank

Head of the World Bank says that the problem is that environmentalists have no specific plan for cutting greenhouse emissions:

'Interviewed ahead of next week's biannual World Bank meeting, Kim added: "They [the climate change community] kept saying, 'What do you mean a plan?' I said a plan that's equal to the challenge. A plan that will convince anyone who asks us that we're really serious about climate change, and that we have a plan that can actually keep us at less than 2°C warming. We still don't have one."'

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/world-bank-climate-change-will-lead-to-battles-for-food-17263

2/27/14

'debate'

http://www.fair.org/blog/2014/02/18/meet-the-press-meets-climate-change/

The idea that, at this late date, NBC News think there is some 'debate' going on about climate change is ridiculous.  So instead of bringing on a knowledgeable, articulate climate scientist, 'Meet the Press' stages a 'debate' between a Republican ignoramus from The State That Gave Us the Scopes Trial and an entertainer who got a bachelor's degree in engineering 35 years ago.  Prettyboy host David Gregory is a pathetic excuse for a journalist.

2/25/14

terrifying math

One of my ur-texts on climate change is Bill McKibben's article, 'Global Warming's Terrifying New Math,' from the August 2, 2012, issue of 'Rolling Stone':

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719?print=true

Basically, McKibben says that if we want to stay within a 2-degree Celsius rise in global temperature (a questionable goal in itself), we can burn no more than about 565 gigatons of fossil fuels.  However, the reserves of various fossil fuel companies are about 2800 gigatons.  To quote the article:

'Which is exactly why this new number, 2,795 gigatons, is such a big deal. Think of two degrees Celsius as the legal drinking limit – equivalent to the 0.08 blood-alcohol level below which you might get away with driving home. The 565 gigatons is how many drinks you could have and still stay below that limit – the six beers, say, you might consume in an evening. And the 2,795 gigatons? That's the three 12-packs the fossil-fuel industry has on the table, already opened and ready to pour.'

2/20/14

keystone delay

Some at least provisional good news on the Keystone XL front.  Anything that delays this disaster is a plus.  Do you realize they have to HEAT this crap to get it to even flow through a pipeline?

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/02/19/3309791/nebraska-keystone-pipeline-ruling/