Starting back in mid December I was bummed to discover that I am in a tribe with college educated and relatively competent folk for whom their consumption is more compelling than their compassion. I am referring to Laura Ingraham’s elaboration on a comment by former Governor George Allen that the entire climate change conversation is a global conspiracy to lower the living standard, or ‘lifestyle’ of the United States. Beyond the stunningly false dichotomy that underlies her statement, is the ignorance. While there are plenty of good arguments about what to do about climate, none of them actually demand that the United States lower its standard of living. Thanks to initiatives taken in some jurisdictions 35 years ago, we have multiple examples that show how to have a modern western excessive lifestyle without increasing energy use per capita. In fact in California, where the per capita energy use hasn’t gone up in 30 years, the economy was grown faster than in the rest of the United States, where per capita usage went up 50%. In Sweden, hardly a third world standard of living, energy usage has been lowered over that same period. Forty percent of the carbon emission reduction can be achieved, according to a McKinsey study published in 2007, would be net positive to the economy. The resistance is more than just Ms. Ingraham or the rest of us being attached to long showers and thick steaks. As for the concern that energy will be more expensive, nothing except an extended global recession will keep energy prices down.
The notion of changing our behaviors to use less, or live and drive more efficiently creates new challenges to living with one another. As reported in the NY Times today, therapists report that conflicts about differing priorities and responses among couples and families. Gender distinctions exist as well, as in women are more oriented to the home and personal behaviors, with men more focused on larger policy impacts. A Santa Barbara based family and marriage therapist said “Food is such an emotional issue,”
Today’s holiday is celebration of the person who most embodied social change in the last century. For all those who wish to see our society different than it is today, the principal lesson to be taken from Martin Luther King is to have a dream- especially a dream that resonates across human ideals for a better life for individuals as well as collectively. Certainly the dream that our skin color would be no more important than our eye color was not original or unique to King, but his personal journey of leadership was.
The dream not being articulated today within the issue of climate is that through living well we can enable millions of others to live better too. While there is a threat that catastrophic suffering may result if the harsher possibilities of climate change take place, the opportunity to transform our society from alienating consumption to conscious commerce.
If we can figure out how to support the millions in the Southwestern US desert with the limited supply there, we can probably deliver water to the billion who currently do not have access to clean water. We have been capable of feeding all of the humans on earth since the late middle 20th century, although we have lacked the will to do it. Not only are these admirable goals for moralizing environmentalists, it promises increased national security, as well as opportunities for prosperity. None of which has been articulated for the likes of George Allen or Laura Ingraham, much less the millions of American voters who profess the environment as a priority but are clearly more concerned with their personal circumstances.
So good night friends. Dream tonight of living well, and having it mean others- millions of others- will live better thanks to your conscious intelligent and self serving consumption.
Holiday Dreaming
January 18th, 2010Copenhagen Crib Sheet
December 14th, 2009This week there are going to be lots of headlines, inches and screen time about the Climate Conference in Copenhagen. Rather than have you be overwhelmed, or just bored and annoyed, let Saturday’s LA Times article by Jim Tankersley reduces it pretty nicely -
1- They’re one big optical illusion- it’s a circus on the outside with a few key players wrestling with breaking down the barriers to an agreement. Even today’s headlines about developing nations boycotting are theater.
2- Many activists are going to leave disappointed.- No matter what agreements emerge, they won’t be anywhere near the estimates of scientists say will be necessary to avoid the upper range of climate change possibilities predicted by existing models.
3- Scientists are striking back. In their own way, scientists are responding to the attack upon climate consensus led by the release of hacked emails. In addition to numerous interpretations of the three main emails actually used in the attack campaign, scientists are releasing data, and making presentations reaffirming this as the warmest decade on record, among other things. BTW- the cooling over the last few years fits with the solar cycle as we are in the low years of the 11 year variation of the sun’s radiance.
4- Language matters- The details of whatever announcement/agreement emerges will evidence a mastery of linguistic diplomacy as the need for both emerging and existing industrial nations to appear to be committed to both reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving or keeping their standards of living are great.
5- The circus is coming.-Last week was nothing. This week the world’s leaders show up- including Obama. The theater in the street will explode as the tens of thousands of environmentalists with no real access to the inside track at the talks strive to make their case, and those on the inside track elbow each other in ways that make the speed skating competition at February’s Winter Olympics look like kids going for cookies.
Here at home, while we won’t be hearing about it until next year, Cap and Trade is the big subject. From Anne Leonard, whose “Story of Stuff” explains our economic system’s accounting problems with the environment, comes “The Story of Cap and Trade”. Leonard’s short online presentations are simple yet sophisticated explanations of complex and very significant subjects. Her position is clear, but doesn’t obscure or ignore the full picture. While she uses the shorthand of ‘saving the planet” she doesn’t pretend that the economy doesn’t matter. Her annotated footnotes- appearing beneath the movie window as it plays &documenting the facts stated- are a model for media that makes me jealous for her staffing support.
Meanwhile, winter is at hand. You can probably feel the places in your house where the heat isn’t, or is leaking. However you may feel about climate- the science or the politics- your best course of action is to keep that heat in. It will keep you warm, make the most of your energy dollars, make our nation more secure (especially if your heat comes from imported oil) and, if you hire local and buy domestic, help generate prosperity here at home.
Happy Holidays!
Climate facts and email hacks
December 4th, 2009Just wanted to post a short review of the basics here, before opinionating on the East Anglia CRU email hacks. I mean everybody else has so why not?
First the facts-
The world is a closed system, and humans wouldn’t be here without the greenhouse effect. Does anyone not accept those facts?
CO2 retains heat disproportionate to its volume. ( Tyndal 1859)
According to economists, civilization has burned fossil fuels to increase C02 by 35%.
Anybody dispute these facts?
By everything we know about chemistry and physics, such a change in the atmospheric gases should produce a warming, which was predicted, along with melting of glaciers, the artic, increased flooding and droughts etc. in the 70′s.
When something is predicted, and then happens, we accept that as good science.
Ok, now on with the opinionating-
One of four ground temp data efforts has been brought into question (through illegal means and questionable provenance). By careful reduction and extraction, a case has been made that this science group has falsified their data, and the head of the group has been suspended from his daily activities there while the academic investigation progresses.
Skeptics, particularly the kind unique to the climate issue, who for the most part ( almost exclusively) take issue with the policies promoted to address climate change ( the carbon tax market in particular) have attempted to make this a ‘shot in the heart’ of not just AGW, but Copenhagen and global action to address the one part of the climate system that we humans have some decision about.
And well they should. They haven’t got much else. Observable data confirms AGW predictions almost daily, even during the current cooling stats. The number of climate refugees grows, and the trend to sustainable practices threatens those who hate any kind of change, but especially those that demand they learn new ways to make money.
More disturbing, is the emotional ranting. People who profess to be champions of capitalism decry Al Gore for profiting by his advocacy. Apparently he’s a sanctimonious hypocrite, whose movie is the prime force behind moving governments world wide. He’ll be a billionaire as a result of the outcome of Copenhagen, which will also undermine, if not end, US sovereignty. Damn.
In my opinion that just makes him a more successful hypocrite than the rest of us.
Having been privileged to meet and get to know some of the leading climate scientists, I feel awful that some of their fellows have been accused of fraud and power grabbing, and that by being in the field, they are painted with the same brush. I am saddened by the lack of thought demonstrated by some very intelligent people, although not surprised by the political opportunism of others.
Unfortunately this is the tribe we are in. Some of them (7% of the US are estimated to be dismissive of AGW) sure are vocal and engaged. And this I respect. I am far more concerned about the 75% of our population that don’t seem engaged, at least to a level past ‘buying green’.
There seems to be very little attention paid to what we all actually agree upon, and how we might act from that commonality. And there is a lot. One of the interesting things about the dismissive 7% is that they are just as likely to engage in conservation behaviors as the alarmed 17%, more so than the 33% that are ‘concerned’.
So when ever you are wondering about the hoopla, just review those facts at the top of this page. Examine the hacks and hollering for anything of substance addressing those facts. Draw your own conclusions.
Beat the Hangover
November 12th, 2009The air is full of those traditional sounds of fall- sniffles, coughs, and feverish moans. As the days shorten, pessimism has spread with the flu. This fall’s version builds upon a spring and summer of agitation and insecurity as the public discourse over a wide variety of issues has been a sort of headache hangover of last fall and winter’s giddy sense of optimism and accomplishment.
Historically, it was a justified buoyancy. But the tempering of realism and the lack of unity on just what sort of change we can actually accomplish sets us up for a new hangover, which unfortunately can’t be excused by a landmark accomplishment.
While it has only recently gotten front-page notice, the upcoming Copenhagen climate conference offers a historical opportunity that actually has equal if not greater potential than electing the first black POTUS. Imagine the impact of a truly meaningful enforceable climate plan agreed upon by all the nations of the world. Imagine the years since Kyoto of effort and organizing and politicking on all sides around the world.
Which is why there is going to be a hangover. Regardless of what is agreed upon in Copenhagen next month, what is generally agreed upon to be required of humanity to both mitigate and adapt to our climate won’t be included. The actions called for won’t be enough for some, and too much for others. Based upon past performance, they won’t be executed by many.
So just like drinking as much water as possible after a night of drinking, taking that aspirin just before going to inebriated sleep, today I want to share with you an example of something you can get stoked and high about and with, that won’t give you any hangover. You might have some after buzz with the prosperity, but the relative stability promised by this example will give the platform that inspires more risk taking.
As I moved into fall, I had the chance to hear Kevin Surace, CEO of Serious Materials speak at UCSB. His talk is titled “Last Chance to Save America”. His company, one of several ‘clean’ tech companies that “Proof or Propaganda” source Marc Porat is involved in. Serious Materials has reinvented sheet rock- you know that thing holding the paint up near you. More specifically they reinvented how sheet rock is made. And what it does both when installing it and just being part of your wall. Surace tells the story in the talk. Among the key points, huge reduction in energy used producing, and great increase in R factor of the wall it is a part of. Results in faster payback for home, and, especially when it goes to scale- reduction in energy use overall. Surace’s personal goal- save a billion tons of carbon release.
Better than all that, Serious Materials has gained the first national recognition for its deal to purchase a notoriously closed domestic door and window plant, retaining the jobs and reinventing windows the same way they reinvented sheet rock.
Invest in the time to hear the Surace presentation, or peruse a few of the much more compact videos on the company website. The shortest slickest bit is a very compressed TED talk here or here. You’ll see something to get excited about, feel confidence in and what has to be accomplished at a mammoth scale. If the United States is to continue as the leading country in the world, in freedoms of all sorts, it needs to lead economically.
The prosperity of the 50’s led to the social revolution of the 60s. Progress in democratic freedoms, and quality of life, almost always follow prosperity- especially broad based prosperity.
As you’ll see Surace show in graphs and charts, there is plenty of profit to be had, and rapid payback in energy savings, in retrofitting our structures. There is no outsourcing replacing your windows and doors or insulating your walls. And energy savings pays dividends in our national security. Again this needs to be scaled way up.
So chin up. According to Surace, there is plenty of work in the material sciences, since we really haven’t done any since building materials became a commodity.
Here at CU, pushing the POP project is one of those jobs. Seems the nation hasn’t been sold on this idea that adapting to climate can produce prosperity and security. Beyond your personal practices or politics, I hope you’ll get enough of a lift from Surace and Serious Materials to want to share it with someone else.
Another Call to a Wall
November 1st, 2009Al Gore’s Repower American has created a video wall to which I have contributed the “Energy Like Salt” promo.
The run up to Copenhagen and the hope for an historic document will grow over the next six weeks. While the likelihood for disappointing compromise and political gamesmanship is probably greater than for an enforceable set of reduction commitments, there will be huge energy and expectations brought.
Rhetoric will be dialed up as well.
Who are we? A timeless question reduced.
October 16th, 2009
Want to point out this excellent audience segmentation study done and ask you, which of the “Six Americas” are you? And if you aren’t one of the ‘Alarmed’ or ‘Dismissive’ what brings you here?
If you are Alarmed or Dismissive, the study says you are both more likely to engage in conservation activity, as well as dialogue with others as well as political actions.
That just leaves about 70 something percent of us with some opinion, but not sufficient conviction to move outside our comfort or busy zone. What would get the four in the middle to show up and come to agreement?
Watch out- the link to the full report is 129 pages, and even with lots of charts and graphs is a lot of reading prose version of statistics.
Smart bricks in the stupid age- a modern wonderment
September 23rd, 2009
You may not have noticed, but every year the world’s leaders show up in New York the last week of September. Each time the president of Iran has been to the US for instance, it has been for this week, which this year is all about negotiating whatever agreements will be signed next December in Copenhagen at the world’s next climate summit.
While this year’s fresh face is Mohamar Khadafee, pitching his tent in this country for the first time.it is Ahmadinejad’s return that is generating the most headlines.
But the work being done is about how civilisation can manage continued increases in the standard of living for its many developing nations, without limitless supplies of fossil fuels. While there are plenty of those who will examine this on the basis of the traditional dialectic of economy vs. environment, I won’t waste your time with more- just this:
Here is one example of why that is a false dialectic. This brick uses a pollutant- fly ash- and requires a fraction – one tenth- of the energy to produce than required to make the traditional brick. Its just a brick, but its smart, because of how its made. Lower energy use equals lower cost, plus it makes a toxic into a resource. Naturally the traditional brick industry has already started arguing that we can’t say how long it will last, even though the product has been put through the stress tests required of all bricks.
Full disclosure- CalStar Founder and Chairman Marc Porat is a source in “Proof or Propaganda”
Is Hypocrisy a Stupid trait?
September 22nd, 2009Last nights global screening of “The Stupid Age” potentially set records for the largest simultaneous screening of a film. Over 440 cities in the US and 63 other countries were treated to a live broadcast style presentation from those arriving (Heather Graham probably being the only person to have traversed both the red and green carpets that I saw) the film itself and then a tent session afterward that including numerous calls to action.
The short of it goes like this. science, including the IPCC fourth assessment report, points to a need to limit the physical inputs humans have on the climate to produce less than two degrees centigrade to avoid catastrophic effects of warming. In order to produce less than the calculated amount of CO2 that would generate more than that amount of warming, we- as in all of humanity burning stuff to operate our societies, need to rapidly curtail our growth in greenhouse gas outputs so that the peak usage occurs in 2015- just six years from now, and drop rapidly thereafter such that we approach preindustrial levels of such gases by 2065. Such a world wide accomplishment will require global agreement in short order and the deadline for said agreement practically is just 77 days away, when the world’s leaders will meet in Copenhagen to sign whatever deal they are working on right now (today at the UN in fact).
The highlight of this evenings global satellite show was not the live transmissions from glacier less Himalayas, or deforested Indonesia, but the in person appearance by UK Climate Minister Ed Milaband. who is in New York for the meeting on climate at the UN (It’s climate week in NYC!). He was challenged by the film’s director as to why the deal he is championing for Copenhagen agreement will “only give us a 50-50 chance to avoid catastrophic climate change”. Miliband became my favorite UK politician with his answer-
“I do not have the luxury of criticizing the past. I have 77 days to get the maximum agreement possible, and there aren’t enough people raising their voices, especially here in the United States.”
I particularly liked that bit about criticizing the past. The film, set in 2055, spends it’s entire length doing just that- particularly that past that is our present. Both in its title and the tone of the post film presentation, there is a sense of the filmmaker’s judging others, and knowing better, as opposed to an engagement aimed at persuading those that might not be in agreement with them. Every generation has its narcissistic sense of this being a critical time, and in the case of climate, there are some very good arguments to validate this sense of destiny. But it’s not appealing, valid or not.
The film itself is fairly brilliant in it’s mixing of documentary footage from the present presented in the best visual computer interface from the future yet. Peter Postlethwaite, presented wide angle as if from within his display (quite a risk for an actor with a mature nose) shares with the audience (who sees everything mirrored from his view) selected stories from around the world of people in the most interesting juxtapositions. The fictional character introduces us to an oil company scientist who lost his home in New Orleans while saving hundreds of neighbors with his boat druing the Hurricane Katrina aftermath; a woman in Nigeria whose village has been made poorer, if that can be imagined, by the explorations of that same oil company; a mountain guide whose tours now are ladder climbs down to the valleys formerly filled by glaciers, and whose village protests the five thousand trucks that take potatoes to Italy to be mashed and returned to Germany for sale; and a windmill engineer who loses the planning committee vote to bring windmills to an abandoned UK airfield right by a drag strip. He is opposed mainly because people “don’t want to have their view spoiled”. Interviews post vote with his opponents reveal the true theme of the film, and possibly humanity. The unacknowledged hypocrisy of the opponents, who both applaud the fairness of the fight and ‘right outcome’ of the vote while also expressing concern about climate change, is one of several strong moments in the film.
All of the hypocrites, and there are plenty arrayed across the issue spectrum, are articulate, intelligent and thoughtful. All are working towards bettering the world in their own way, even when they are generating huge increases in carbon release, or just putting about on a Harley.
And at the end of the day, as I reflect on the issue, it isn’t carbon dioxide release that we can’t master. Nor is it lack of gray matter, as the oil engineer points out. And I doubt the self-image concerns of the fictional narrative character (“maybe we just didn’t think we were worth saving”). Possibly our challenge is that hypocrisy isn’t just a human failing, but something we have needed to survive our development process as a species. Consciousness and memory may demand that we ignore our failures to integrate what we know and value so we can keep this circus running. Hypocrisy might not be stupid, but an evolutionary artifact that lets us have faith, believing in our best nature even as we act out our poorest.
The film and filmmakers deserve kudos for their accomplishments, even as they like the rest of humanity struggle with their execution. One comment I heard leaving the theater criticized the director’s personal presentation (“you’d think if you were going to be on camera before a million people you would brush your hair better”). I just question the characterization of our time. We aren’t stupid, but we certainly are complicit in the suffering of others, now and in the future.
The Age of Stupid- opening soon
September 17th, 2009
“The Age of Stupid” is a fictional film starring Oscar-nominated Pete Postlethwaite as an old man living in the devastated world of 2055 looking back on life in our times, contemplating why we didn’t save ourselves. Described by The Guardian as “The first successful dramatization of climate change to hit the big screen”, the film opens globally, as befits a climate themed film, next Monday night, with a simultaneous opening in over 50 countries (440 cities) and a simulcast of the New York premier.
In spite of winning several festival awards, the film didn’t capture broad distribution interest from a conventional distributor, and is being opened in an innovative independently organized global day and date strategy complete with a ‘green carpet’ premier that will feature Kofi Annan, and Radiohead’s Thom Yorke playing live.
Have a look at the trailer and judge for yourself. The play here is clearly to frighten you, and yet give you a sense that you can make a difference in preventing the suffering so vividly portrayed.
Congratulations to the production company for mounting this broad release and achieving the breakthroughs in distribution this type of release requires.
At the same time, it begs the question- do you need more scare tactics or would some straight talk be more useful to you? If it is the latter, let me know how I can put “Proof or Propaganda” in your hands as a tool to inspire dialogue in your community about climate change.
Glen Beck doesn’t know jack about science
September 10th, 2009The resignation of Van Jones from his post as green job advisor to the White House this past weekend was both cheered and lamented this week by various champions of reinvention of the building, energy and transportation sector. Arianna Huffington thanked Beck for freeing Jones to, like Sarah Palin aspires, do better more important work outside of government.
In attacking Jones on his past, Beck reveals his preference for ideology and history over economics and the future. The question I would ask Beck is whether or not he thinks the laws of economics trump those of physics and chemistry. Economists tell us that since the industrial revolution humans have burnt coal and oil in amounts that have changed the proportion of carbon dioxide in the oceans and atmosphere. The increase is calculated to be about 35% more. Physics tells us that CO2 retains heat disproportionate to its volume and chemistry that CO2 proportions impact the PH of a fluid. These repeatable testable laws are what informs the basis of climate change science. Well before most of us had any idea about global cooling or warming, scientists predicted numerous changes in our world based upon these laws. Today observation confirms those predictions.
The future of the economy – something Beck does seem to care about- derives from those changes. Beck, and others who have focused upon ideology and referencing the laws of economics while ignoring those of physics and chemistry, are missing the emerging theme of the 21st Century – clean technology leadership in energy, transportation and building is going to translate to leadership in banking, employment, foreign exchange, and probably military might as well.
So it isn’t just science Beck doesn’t know about, but economics as well. In going after a leading author and hands on leader in putting people to work in green building, Beck and others have done damage to investors in the US economy. As pointed out by Thomas Freidman this week, China, by virtue of a mono party government, has been able to make the longterm policy choices to invest in the markets that are clearly driving this century’s development. Those busy distracting this administration instead of engaging in the discourse to find the best practices to answer the challenges that will not only secure our energy independence, reverse our balance of trade, and most immediately important, put our population to work, are betraying their claim to capitalism.
At it’s simplest level, capitalism values self interest. On a societal level, that self interest is served in serving the needs as defined by others. And the global need, where willing buyers are standing by right now, is for clean sustainable energy at or near the coal price of a kilowatt. Again chemistry and physics point to plentiful ubiquitous sources that are free, above ground, and need technology developed to be converted cost effectively. Silicon Valley, with a rich deep vein of talent, experience and cash, is eager to dive in.
But even the most liberal of investors wants to know that the rules are going to be before getting in the game. Until the energy and climate legislation gets done, they won’t. And getting Van Jones out of the jobs position means that one component of the recovery stimulus will be further delayed. Until building and home owners get the word on federal tax credits for upgrading energy efficiency, those installation jobs won’t be posted in the want ads.
Conservatives of the country are getting shortchanged. Instead of having a place at the table, making sure that the regulations are the best least practice, yet also stable and securing the place of capital in the societal investment, they are left out of the discussion. Those representing conservative thought who are engaged are being vilified by those crowing about socialism and job killing.
Meanwhile the self proclaimed communists of China have positioned themselves to out invest the US in critical growth areas. They have an even bigger number of people to put to work. There are populations in China greater than the US just striving to achieve running water and electrification. Yet they have the political will to invest in the future and the US doesn’t. Makes one wonder what was so bad about Jones having identified with communism.
The fact is that Beck doesn’t know jack about any of this, and doesn’t care either. His self interest is in that extremely short term commodity known as ratings. Serving up Van Jones as communist boogie man to his audience seems to have been the racist play that has made his calling the President a racist old news. He can be ‘hot’ again, and we can count on him to be even more hyperbolic in finding his next mark.