Archive for the ‘climate change’ Category
Earth Overshot Day
Today marks the day in the year when the human race has collectively used one year’s worth of natural resources. To put it another way, we are on a path to use 125% more resources than the earth can generate in 2008.
You don’t need a science degree to understand that this is not sustainable.
I’ve noticed a strange trend in the public dialogue (particularly in the U.S.) about sustainability. Most people take the fact that living sustainably is difficult in our society and use that to discredit the very premise that sustainability is important or a legitimate concern.
In short, we’ve all got our heads in the sand and we’re proud of it!
Take, for example, gasoline prices. Burning gasonline is a highly unsustainable activity. Not only are we running out of oil, but the contribution to CO2 levels in the atmosphere is accelerating global climate change. In other words, we should probably find a way to burn less gas. In spite of this, politicians are scheming for ways to drive down prices and thereby encourage burning more gas. Huh?
It’s never going to be easy to convert our high-energy lifestyle to a low-energy mode. It’s never going to be cheap. But we had better start now while we still have a little bit of capital left to spend! (Oh wait, I think we just lost that this week as well.)
Filed under climate change, environment : Comments (2) : Sep 23rd, 2008
Milwaukee : 12th Most Sustainable City
Milwaukee, Wisconsin. My home for the last 2.5 years. And the U.S.’s 12th most sustainable city?
SustainLane is a new website that uses contributions submitted by citizens around the country to rank cities on 16 attributes of sustainability. By these measures, Milwaukee ranks #12. This is an improvement from #16 two years ago.
Given the empahsis on sustainability in the city and at the state level, I would expect this ranking to improve year over year. We might not catch Portland, but I bet we could make the top 10 in the next decade.
For reference, here are the current rankings for 2008:
- Portland, OR
- San Francisco, CA
- Seattle, WA
- Chicago, IL
- New York, NY
- Boston, MA
- Minneapolis, MN
- Philadelphia, PA
- Oakland, CA
- Baltimore, MD
On Milwaukee!
Filed under Milwaukee, climate change, environment : Comments (2) : Sep 22nd, 2008
The new Chevy Volt - Bastard Child of a Twisted Mind?
It’s hard to believe that the Chevy Volt came from a company like GM which is led by the most unapologetic global climate change denier, Bob Lutz. Lutz appeared on The Colbert Report and not only trashed the idea of global climate change, but trashed his own product, the Volt.
ThinkProgress has a whole writeup on the odious Bob Lutz.
Filed under climate change, energy, environment, technology : Comments (0) : Sep 18th, 2008
Happy Earth Day
Filed under climate change, energy, environment : Comments (1) : Apr 22nd, 2008
Deep Economy
I’ve decided to track the books I’m reading here on tadfad. I added a new page across the top (it’s called “books”) and I’ve added two mini-reviews thus far. Here’s the latest:
tadfad » books via kwout
Filed under climate change, culture, energy, environment : Comments (5) : Feb 9th, 2008
From the archives : Science
I was browsing through some of the tadfad archives (available on the right-hand column) and found this gem I wrote a year ago:
Science is one of the few places one can find Truth. It is not based on conjecture, opinion, hearsay, myth, or faith. Science is not politics. Science is not journalism. Science is certainly not religion. Science is built exclusively on truths that combine to make Truth.
I think everything I wrote a year ago is equally apropos today. Fortunately, the anti-science Bush administration is on its way out. The next president will have enormous challenges that will require a strong understanding and appreciation for science. Will s/he understand?
Enjoy the associated image as well:
Filed under climate change, culture, politics : Comments (2) : Dec 2nd, 2007
Mass transit
When I was a kid, you could buy a gallon of gasoline for under a dollar. Those day are long since past, with gas prices hovering near $3/gallon and $4 on the horizon.
Surprisingly, American drivers don’t seem to mind. Our collective memory is so short that whenever gas drops by a few cents we forget that it just went up by a quarter. $2.89 gas doesn’t hurt so bad once you’ve purchased $3.25 gas for a few weeks.
The trouble is that we’re not doing anything substantial to provide options to drivers. I live in Milwaukee and currently have two choices to get to work: drive 15 minutes by car or ride the bus for nearly an hour. Not surprisingly, I choose the former. (Actually, I am working on a third option involving my bicycle, but that’s for another post).
What we need are some new options.
As the price of gas climbs, the economics of mass transit changes. The number of commuters who would ride metro train when gas is at $4/gallon is much higher than the number of riders at $2/gallon. The trouble is, gas prices can rise much faster than we can build mass transit alternatives. It’s time that we made some forward-looking predictions and planned for the extremely likely occurrence of gasoline prices continuing to rise.
The primary reason mass transit development is so hard is that it has high up-front costs. Building a light rail system requires planning and capital investment. (Two skills that most state and federal legislators lack). The critical flaw in calculating the cost of a mass transit system is that we don’t give it a fair comparison. In the 1950s and 60s, the booming post-war economy invested billions of dollars building the interstate highway system. Due to our collective memory problem (remember?) we assume the cost of highways to be zero. Worse, the highway system is so ingrained in our culture that we mindlessly shovel billions of dollars each year to keep it running.
And our highway system is dying. This year, highway congestion will cost $100 billion in lost productivity. This problem will only get worse as demand increases with limited change in supply. Are these costs factored into the economic analysis of mass transit? Hardly.
We need to start building mass transit solutions now. This year. Today. We need express bus lanes, metro and regional rail. We need to proactively plan (gasp!) for increased gas prices and increased demand. We simply cannot wait for $5/gallon gas to come around because by then it will be too late.
Filed under Milwaukee, climate change, economics, politics : Comments (4) : Sep 27th, 2007
Thompson
The latest Republican to join the race for the White House is actor Fred Thompson. Frighteningly, he seems to be a favorite among the core republican base that rejects Giuliani as too liberal and McCain as too hapless. Here are some choice quotes from Mr. Thompson:
“This is a battle between the forces of civilization and the forces of evil and we’ve got to choose sides”
Gee, I’m glad that decades of foreign policy can be so easily summarized in a quotation. I choose civilization!
“Some people think that our planet is suffering from a fever. … NASA says the Martian South Pole’s ‘ice cap’ has been shrinking for three summers in a row. Maybe Mars got its fever from earth. If so, I guess Jupiter’s caught the same cold, because it’s warming up too, like Pluto. This has led some people, not necessarily scientists, to wonder if Mars and Jupiter, non-signatories to the Kyoto Treaty, are actually inhabited by alien SUV-driving industrialists who run their air conditioning at 60 degrees and refuse to recycle.”
Damn the earth-science experts with decades of experience and actual data. Fred Thompson and his folksy interpretations of climate data is so much more comforting. Plus, he’s on TV–he must be right!
I’m sorry, Mr. Thompson, but we need someone with a little more intellectual honesty and integrity than that. Empty rhetoric like the above have gotten us into our current dire situation–both in Iraq and in terms of climate change–and it’s time we move past.
For 2008 we desperately need someone to step forward who can act–and speak–like an adult. There are no free lunches and no easy answers. The world is not a simple dichotomy of right/wrong; black/white; civilization/evil. Until we have the courage and fortitude to grapple with the inherent ambiguity and nuances of life in the 21st century, we will continue to elect charlatans who peddle easy answers–and we will continue to suffer the consequences.
Filed under climate change, politics, war : Comments (1) : Jun 2nd, 2007
It’s sunlight
I think one of the problems with conceptualizing the problem of our reliance on carbon-heavy fossil fuels is that they are rather abstract concepts. What is oil? What is coal?
Of course, we all know what oil and coal are. Most of us even know where they come from. But I would wager that relatively few of us stop to think about how they are formed. Instead, we think about them merely as energy sources, detached from their root source.
To help with our conceptualizing of fossil fuels and their source, I propose a handy aide: fossil fuel is sunlight!
As the reader will recall, all fossil fuels start their life as plant matter. And since all plant matter derives its energy from sunlight, it’s appropriate to say that the plant is merely a holding vessel for this solar energy. Plants are pretty nifty in that they convert diffuse solar energy into useful (and often delicious) carbon energy. This energy is passed up the food chain as animals eat plants, then eat each other. Alternately, we can release this energy directly by burning the plant material. Regardless of how we use the plants, the result is the same: solar energy is converted into a usable form of energy.
The reason fossil fuels are so tricky is that the represent stored solar energy from millions of years ago. Think of these fuels like a time machine capable of transporting prehistoric sunlight. (A misconstruction to be sure, but here me out.) In this light, it’s almost poetic that excessive reliance on fossil fuels is causing a shift in global climate. We’ve greatly increased the amount of energy in play by digging up long-dead plant matter and burning it.
This time-machine-sunlight concept is also a frightening reminder to our looming energy predicament. The Western world is still pretending that alternate fuels will simply step in for oil and coal without so much as a hiccup. Problem is, green energy by its very nature relies on contemporary solar energy, which is rather diffuse. The energy equation changes greatly when we’re forced to live within our means and not rely on ancient sunlight.
Filed under climate change, energy : Comments (2) : May 23rd, 2007
Johnson’s [and Welch’s] Wager
A couple years ago, I wrote this blog post: http://www.tadfad.com/2004/11/21/
Today, I was browsing the internets and stumbled upon this podcast: http://www.businessweek.com/mediacenter/podcasts/welchway/welchway_02_19_07.htm
I was surprised to find a very similar thesis in play. Granted, my version was a bit more far-reaching (Welch focuses mainly on the corporate implications) but we’re using the same philosophical basis.
When Jack Welch and I [loosely] agree, it’s a good sign that I’m not out in left field. More so, it’s a pretty strong argument to get serious about global climate change and start taking action. We no longer have the luxury of putting the difficult decisions off for another year. We need to act now before it’s too late.
Filed under climate change, energy : Comments (0) : May 17th, 2007
