Copenhagen Crib Sheet

December 14th, 2009

This 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!

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Beat the Hangover

November 12th, 2009

The 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.

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Another Call to a Wall

November 1st, 2009

Al 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.


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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.

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Is Hypocrisy a Stupid trait?

September 22nd, 2009

Last 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.

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Glen Beck doesn’t know jack about science

September 10th, 2009

The 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.

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Viewing the fire this time

September 2nd, 2009

My friend and not too distant neighbor Doc Searls posted a geological outlook on the ecosystem here in fire plagued California. And he looks both past and present in doing so. Doc is always a good read.
And inspired my comment, which I re-post here.

People come to California to reinvent themselves, free from the constraints of ‘home’. Yet they don’t adapt to the physical reality of where their psychic freedom is achieved. Only since jurisdictions started enforcing building codes have we seen the end of shake roofing in southern California. Our past is pretty clear- when there is death and suffering, we’ll respond.
As my very smart sources in “Proof or Propaganda” told me- we are a very clever species. How much suffering will occur before we adapt the laws of humans to the facts of chemistry and physics is yet to be seen. Nearly 80 years since Fuller pointed out we could feed everyone, we still haven’t. Global television makes that suffering very available and yet not compelling.
Short of the most extreme asteroid hitting the planet or nuclear holocaust scenarios, humans are likely to persist and prosper.
While millions of Mayans may have starved over a decade or so of that society’s demise, there wasn’t global telecom to show those who were sharing the planet at the time. We really don’t know what will happen on so many levels. We seem to be able to watch Darfur and keep our selves under control.
Geologic perspective can be misleading too. Humans have succeeded to this level because we have had geologic and climate stability for 10- 15,000 years. Will the lessons learned from those successes be available in the future? While we have built seed repositories, will those who find them be able to make use of them?
“The little ice age” was a challenge to emerging agriculture, but previous ones only prove that we can survive as hunter/gatherers.
We started burning wood, and went to coal and oil because they were easily available and convertible. Governments subsidized that transition heavily. Given what we know about the risks of continued burning, to say nothing of the increasing costs-security as well as monetary- and lack of availability to bring another billion people into even third world middle class standards of living, borrowing against the future to own the clean coal price generation of kilowatts is a good bet.
Betting on human nature to change without widespread pain and suffering is probably not as good a bet. We may be decades away from those painful possibilities. That gives those who benefit from those coal trains crossing the continent plenty of time and money to make sure that things change over as long a time frame as there is still coal easily and cheaply available.
The very successful memes of the individual are currently much more effective than those of the collective. Unless the balance shifts toward collective benefit,only the efforts of enlightened capitalists offer promise.
That said, it was a beautiful humid day in Santa Barbara. I’m looking forward to more.

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