The Future is Green

Saving Polar Bears in the Bedroom: Free Endangered Species Condoms

You can't make this stuff up.

On Valentines Day the Center for Biological Diversity began distributing 100,000 free condoms in all 50 states using a volunteer army of some 3,000 dedicated souls. Their effort, called Endangered Species Condoms, is designed to educate people about the ways unsustainable human population growth is driving many species to extinction at a cataclysmic rate.

The condoms come in a variety of colorful wrappers featuring pictures of endangered critters, with slogans like, "Wrap with care . . . save the polar bear," and "Hump smarter . . . save the snail darter." Honest to god, I swear I'm not making this up.

According to the organization, their volunteers range from "ministers to grandmothers to healthcare providers to college students and biologists." Each package contains two condoms packaged with original artwork, facts about overpopulation and the extinction crisis, and suggestions on how the human population can be stabilized.

More power to them, I say. Visitors to the program's web site can enter a drawing to win a lifetime supply of free condoms. I wonder how they determine exactly how many you'll need.

'How Bad For The Environment Can Throwing Away One Plastic Bottle Be?' 30 Million People Wonder

First of all, dear readers, I must apologize for the long silence. I needed to put the blog on hold while finishing up the manuscript for my book, Practical Green Remodeling, due out this summer. It's nearly done (my editor will be relieved to hear) and I hope to resume regular blogging shortly. But I couldn't resist sharing this piece from The Onion that my son alerted me to.

  A local resident discards a plastic bottle—just as he has done his whole life—with no perceivable effect on the environment.

WASHINGTON—Wishing to dispose of the empty plastic container, and failing to spot a recycling bin nearby, an estimated 30 million Americans asked themselves Monday how bad throwing away a single bottle of water could really be.

"It's fine, it's fine," thought Maine native Sheila Hodge, echoing the exact sentiments of Chicago-area resident Phillip Ragowski, recent Florida transplant Margaret Lowery, and Kansas City business owner Brian McMillan, as they tossed the polyethylene terephthalate object into an awaiting trash can. "It's just one bottle. And I'm usually pretty good about this sort of thing."

"Not a big deal," continued roughly one-tenth of the nation's population.

According to the inner monologue of millions upon millions of citizens, while not necessarily ideal, throwing away one empty bottle probably wouldn't make that much of a difference, and could even be forgiven, considering how long they had been carrying it around with them, the time that could be saved by just tossing it out right here, and the fact that they had bicycled to work once last July.

In addition, pretty much the entire states of Missouri and New Mexico calmly reassured themselves Monday that they definitely knew better than to do something like this, but admitted that hey, nobody is perfect, and at least they weren't still using those horrible aerosol cans, or just throwing garbage directly on the ground.

All agreed that disposing of what would eventually amount to 50 tons of thermoplastic polymer resin wasn't the end of the world.

"It's not like I don't care, because I do, and most of the time I don't even buy bottled water," thought Missouri school teacher Heather Delamere, the 450,000th caring and progressive individual to have done so that morning, and the 850,000th to have purchased the environmentally damaging vessel due to being thirsty, in a huge rush, and away from home. "It's really not worth beating myself up over."

"What's one little bottle in the grand scheme of things, you know?" added each and every single one of them.

Monday's plastic-bottle-related dilemma wasn't the only environmental quandary facing millions of citizens across the country. An estimated 20 million men and women wondered how wasteful leaving a single lightbulb on all night really was, while more than 40 million Americans asked themselves if anyone would actually notice if they just turned up the heat a few degrees instead of walking all the way downstairs and getting another blanket.

Likewise, had they not been so tired, and busy, and stressed, citizens making up the equivalent of three major metropolitan areas told reporters that they probably wouldn't have driven their minivans down to the corner store.

"Relax," thousands upon thousands of Americans quietly whispered to themselves as they tossed two articles of clothing into an empty washing machine and turned it on. "What are you so worried about?"

You can see the original here.

A Wonkish Post About the Waxman-Markey Bill, a.k.a. the American Clean Energy and Security Act

Just back from Atlanta, where I spent four days at the Renewable Energy Markets conference sponsored by CRS, the Center for Resource Solutions.

One of the most striking things about the conference was the acknowledgement by virtually every speaker that a great deal of the clean energy landscape is about to change. Congress is on the verge of passing (we hope) some version of the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACESA), also known as the Waxman-Markey bill. (The Senate version of the bill is called the Bingaman bill, but don’t let that confuse you).

Though far from perfect, ACESA is a significant step forward in the effort to reduce our dependance on fossil fuels and to curb global warming. The bill will mandate that greenhouse gas emissions be reduced by 80% (from 2005 levels) by the year 2050. That’s ambitious goal to be accomplished in 40 years, but it’s far from impossible. Still, many would argue that it is not ambitious enough.

One of the most crucial features of this 1,200 page bill is a cap-and-trade system for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This is the same model that has been highly successful in reducing acid rain, so we know the mechanism to be effective. Simply put, energy producers would first be required to limit their greenhouse gas emissions to 2005 levels, and then gradually reduce emissions each year as the cap is ratcheted down.

Opponents of cap-and-trade claim that the costs will be prohibitive. But experience has shown that the successful acid rain reduction program in the US has been far less costly than originally predicted. And the European Union currently operates under a cap-and-trade system with virtually no negative economic consequences, according to an analysis by MIT.

More importantly, what opponents fail to consider, and should be reminded of at every opportunity, is that the cost of inaction will dwarf the cost of addressing climate change. I am always amazed when professed fiscal conservatives ignore financial consequences that will occur after the next election cycle, let alone in their children’s lifetime. This is conservatism? I call it irresponsible. But I digress.

But back to ACESA. One of the bill’s flaws, which could be easily fixed, is that neither the House or Senate versions contain a provision for protecting the voluntary market for renewable energy credits (RECs). (Click here for more detail on renewable energy credits).

While utilities in 30 states must buy RECs to comply with state mandates for clean energy, called Renewable Portfolio Standards, many organizations voluntarily buy RECs as part of a corporate commitment to environmental responsibility. Some of the largest voluntary buyers of RECs include Intel, PepsiCo, DuPont, Staples, Alcoa, Cargill Dow, Delphi Corporation, and scores of others who have offset from 4% to 100% of their conventional electricity usage. To date, voluntary REC purchases have been responsible for over 50% of all new renewable energy development in the US. Voluntary purchases in 2007, alone, account for 18.1 Megawatt hours of clean energy capacity. It’s a big success story.

A simple change in the bill’s language could rectify this shortcoming. It would take someone far more wonkish than I to explain this adequately, but passing this bill is a crucial step towards tackling climate change. I urge you to write, call, or email your Senators and Representatives to say you support passage of ACESA, and that it should be amended to provide added protections for the voluntary REC market.

New Film, The Age of Stupid, asks Why didn't we stop climate change while we had the chance?

The Age of  Stupid, a powerful new British drama/documentary film about climate change, is having its Unites States premier on September 21 and 22 in theaters in every state. (You can find a list of theaters and show times, and order tickets here.) The film stars Oscar-nominated actor, Pete Postlethwaite, as an old man living in the devastated world of 2055, watching 'archive' footage from 2008 and asking: why didn't we stop climate change while we had the chance?

Within 48 hours of the film's British launch at Tate Modern on September 1, 10,000 people, including Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, all of the cabinet, and the leaders of the UK's three main political parties all signed a pledge to  cut the UK's emissions by 10% in 2010.

Franny Armstrong, director of The Age of Stupid and founder of the environmental organization 10:10 said: "It's amazing that within 48 hours of the campaign's launch, the leaderships of the three main political parties have committed to cut their carbon emmissions by 10%. Who said people power was dead?

The premiere will be simulcast live from a solar powered tent in New York City to over 400 movie theaters at 7:30 PM ET (6:30 PM CT/ 5:30 PM MT/ tape delayed 8PM PT) and will include a live pre-show from the green carpet including Kofi Annan, Gillian Anderson, the film's director Franny Armstrong, and star, Pete Postlethwaite, and other luminaries from around the world including Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland, and Ed Miliband, the UK Minister of Energy and Climate Change.

Mark your calendars and order your tickets now, and let me know what you thought of the film.

Water crisis? What water crisis?

The other day I mentioned to my mother that I've been studying the global water crisis. She replied, "There's a global water crisis?"

Now, my mother reads a newspaper every day, the Baltimore Sun. She listens to NPR. Most mornings she watches the Today Show, and every evening she watches at least one TV news program. Every Sunday at 9:00 AM she watches CBS Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood, followed by 60 Minutes in the evening.

And she doesn't know that there is a global water crisis.

It seems clear that the media is doing a singularly bad job of getting this story out. Yet 12 million people die each year due to lack of access to clean water. A child dies every six seconds for lack of access to clean water. The WorldWatch Institute has called water scarcity "the most underappreciated global environmental challenge of our time." No kidding.

Pollution, climate change, and population growth all contribute to a problem that, if left unchecked, will result in water scarcity for two thirds of the world's population by 2025. By 2030, according to the UN, more than half the population of large Third World cities will have no access at all to water or sanitation services.

But this is not just a Third World problem. Huge swaths of the United States are currently facing severe water shortages. Maude Barlow writes in Blue Covenant that in 2007, " Lake Superior, the world's largest freshwater lake, dropped to its lowest level in eighty years. . . . California has a twenty-year supply of freshwater left. New Mexico has only a ten-year supply. Arizona is out: it now import all of its drinking water."

Barlow also notes that the U.S. Geological Survey found that "the parched Interior West is probably the driest it has been in five hundred years." This is more than a drought. We are running out of water.

The water crisis is complex and of vast proportion. I'll be writing more about it in the coming weeks, both about the effects that are being felt around the world, and what we can do about it. In the meanwhile, Google "global water crisis" and check out one or two of the 44 million hits you'll find there. And, for heaven's sake, stop letting the water run while you brush your teeth.

TELL THE SENATE TO FIX CLIMATE BILL LOOPHOLES

I just did something to help secure a clean energy future for the United States. It took exactly 30 seconds. Maybe 25 seconds. You can, too.

All you have to do is visit the EarthJustice web site where a simple, easy-to-use form will enable you to send a letter (already written for you - how thoughtful is that!) to your senators asking them to support the climate bill passed by the House recently.

THIS IS IMPORTANT.

It is also important to ask the Senate to fix a couple of shortcomings in the House version in the bill.

A recent editorial in the New York Times (see below) explained what the Senate must do to strengthen the bill.

Why is it so important to write to your senators? EarthJustice explains:

Your senator is hearing daily from opposing voices, among them far-right bloggers and talk radio hosts, who do not believe global warming is real and want to keep our nation hooked on dirty fossil fuels. It is time for us to demand that the Senate act swiftly to combat global warming and usher in an era of clean renewable energy. The world cannot wait. The Senate must craft a bill that sets science-based caps on carbon emissions.

Please visit EarthJustice today and send a letter to your senators. It only takes 30 seconds. While you're at it, why not ask ten friends to do the same.

NY TIMES EDITORIAL, "CLIMATE LOOPHOLES"

Published July 21, 2009

The House’s approval of the Waxman-Markey climate change bill earlier this month was a remarkable political achievement and an important beginning to the task of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But in all the last-minute wheeling and dealing, the House bill acquired two big loopholes that the Senate must close.

The first loophole involves coal-fired power plants. Coal is the world’s most abundant fossil fuel — producing more than half the electricity in the United States — and also its dirtiest, with twice the carbon content of natural gas.

The House bill would limit emissions from coal-fired power plants in two ways. It imposes a cap on emissions from all industrial facilities that tightens slowly over time. It also sets tough performance standards on new power plants permitted after 2009, requiring emissions reductions of 50 percent or more. The bill would help underwrite advanced technologies capable of capturing carbon dioxide and storing it underground.

The bill does not, however, impose any performance standards on existing power plants. And it explicitly removes these plants from the reach of the Clean Air Act. This is a mistake. The overall cap on industrial emissions will not be fully effective for a long time, and, meanwhile, the government should be able to impose lower-emissions requirements on the older, dirtiest plants.

There is little doubt that the Clean Air Act authorizes the Environmental Protection Agency to require existing plants to reduce emissions by, say, using cleaner fuels or increasing efficiency. But the House bill says otherwise, at least when it comes to carbon dioxide. The Senate must fix this problem by writing standards for existing plants into its bill or restoring the E.P.A.’s authority to do so. The old plants simply cannot be let off the hook.

The second loophole involves the tricky matter of offsets.

Ecological Intelligence - an important new book by Daniel Goleman - just in time for Earth Day

 Earth day is coming up, and with along with it a spate of events, blogs, web sites, films, and publications all dealing with the environment in one way or another. It's hard to know which to pay attention to. Among many worthy contenders for our attention, I recommend a new book, "Ecological Intelligence," by Daniel Goleman, author of the bestseller "Emotional Intelligence."

In his new book, Goleman argues that, much as we might wish to buy products and services that are more environmental responsible, in most cases it is all but impossible to find the information we need to make those decisions. And partial information may actually do more harm than good, leading us to believe that our small efforts at recycling and green awareness are enough, while we fail to appreciate the wider-ranging life-cycle implications of all that we buy and do.

Greenwashing is rampant; many products tout one eco-friendly attribute - made from organic cotton, say - without mentioning that the item was made using child labor in a factory with dangerous and unfair working conditions.

In other cases, even with no attempt at greenwashing, the information we need is just not available. Consumer products contain thousands of chemical compounds, only a tiny fraction of which have been tested for safety. Many products have been reformulated to remove compounds that have been found harmful, yet they contain dozens, or even hundreds, of other chemicals that no one knows the long-term effects of.

Goleman's solution for this mess is a system of "radical transparency." As more product information becomes readily available and widely disseminated, consumers vote with their wallets and business takes heed. He offers trans-fats as a textbook example of what happens when consumers have access to information.

When scientists first discovered that trans-fats, even in small doses, had serious adverse effects, Congress began investigating. A long debate about how or whether to regulate trans-fats ensued. But while Congress deliberated - a long process - more and more information about trans-fats came out in the news and was quickly spread by blogs, web sites, and social media. Sales of food containing trans-fats plummeted.

As a result, manufacturers reformulated hundreds of products; today it is nearly impossible to find  food items containing trans-fats on the grocery store shelf. This happened without any government regulation.

Likewise, when car makers were required to display a rating system for the rollover potential of SUVs, the public voted with its buying power. When the rating system first appeared, thirty models were rated with one or two stars - indicating a 30% or greater chance of rollovers. Just one SUV achieved four stars, meaning less than a 20% chance. Resulting consumer pressure convinced automakers to speed up efforts to make SUVs safer. Within four years, twenty-four models received four stars, and only one SUV rated two stars. (Of course there are lots of other problems with SUVs, but that's a subject for another post.)

The profit motive, Goleman argues, is what will ultimately move the world in a more environmentally responsible direction. "Eco-transparency," he writes, "transforms the core assumptions . . . transforming the business model to create a market reality where doing good becomes synonymous with doing well."

You can listen to an audio clip of Daniel Goleman explaining the market implications of "radical transparency" by clicking the image at the top of this post. If you want to order the book from Amazon, please click here.

Weatherizing older homes: a win-win-win stimulus that creates jobs, cuts carbon emissions, reduces energy consumption, and revitalizes neighborhoods

Richard Moe, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, in a piece titled, "This Old Wasteful House" (see below) on the Op-ed page of today's New York Times makes a strong case for the multiple benefits from weatherizing older homes: reducing energy consumption, cutting carbon emissions, revitalizing neighborhoods and creating jobs.

Homes are responsible for 21% of greenhouse gas emissions in the US.  And it's not only aging middle-class homes. I have observed energy audits of luxury homes built in the last 20 years that show serious deficiencies in thermal protection.  Air sealing and insulation can pay for themselves in as little as two years, and continue to pay dividends in the form of lower fuel bills, putting more cash in homeowners’ pockets.

There is yet another important advantage of upgrading our aging housing stock not addressed in Mr. Moe's Op-ed piece. Unlike the vast tracts of suburban sprawl that characterize much of new residential construction, older homes are often located in compact, walkable communities. Revitalizing such neighborhoods strengthens a pattern of development that is far less dependent on the automobile, and hence, more sustainable. It’s a win-win-win stimulus package.

This Old Wasteful House

by Richard Moe

NEVER before has America had so many compelling reasons to preserve the homes in its older residential neighborhoods. We need to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions. We want to create jobs, and revitalize the neighborhoods where millions of Americans live. All of this could be accomplished by making older homes more energy-efficient.

Let’s begin with energy consumption and emissions. Forty-three percent of America’s carbon emissions come from heating, cooling, lighting and operating our buildings. Older homes are particularly wasteful: Homes built in 1939 or before use around 50 percent more energy per square foot than those constructed in 2000. But with significant improvements and retrofits, these structures could perform on a par with newer homes.

So how does a homeowner go green? The first step is an energy audit by a local utility. These audits can be obtained in many communities at little or no cost. They help identify the sources of heat loss, allowing homeowners to make informed decisions about how to reduce energy use in the most cost-effective way.

Homeowners are likely to discover that much of the energy loss comes down to a lack of insulation in attics and basements. Sealing other air leaks also helps. This can be done by installing dryer vent seals that open only when the dryer is in use, as well as fireplace draft stoppers and attic door covers.

Experience has shown that virtually any older or historic house can become more energy-efficient without losing its character. Restoring the original features of older houses — like porches, awnings and shutters — can maximize shade and insulation. Older wooden windows perform very well when properly weatherized — this includes caulking, insulation and weather stripping — and assisted by the addition of a good storm window. Weatherizing leaky windows in most cases is much cheaper than installing replacements.

The good news is that the administration is taking steps to help homes save energy with a program that will invest almost $8 billion in state and local weatherization and energy-efficiency efforts. The Weatherization Assistance Program, aimed at low-income families, will allow an average investment of up to $6,500 per home in energy efficiency upgrades.

My organization is also working with the Natural Resources Defense Council and members of Congress on legislation to help cover the costs of making all older homes more energy-efficient. Under this proposal, a homeowner would receive a $3,000 incentive for improving energy efficiency by 20 percent, and $150 for each additional percentage point of energy savings. If 3,000 homes could be retrofitted each year, we estimate that after 10 years we could see a reduction of 65 million metric tons of carbon emitted into the atmosphere, and the equivalent of 200 million barrels of oil saved.

The labor-intensive process of rehabilitating older buildings would also create jobs, and this labor can’t be shipped overseas. The wages would stay in the community, supporting local businesses and significantly increasing household incomes — just the kind of boost the American economy needs right now.

Before demolishing an old building to make way for a new one, consider the amount of energy required to manufacture, transport and assemble the pieces of that building. With the destruction of the building, all that energy is utterly wasted. Then think about the additional energy required for the demolition itself, not to mention for new construction. Preserving a building is the ultimate act of recycling.

Richard Moe is the president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

The price of risk: Taxpayers pay the costs of both financial and climactic melt-downs

Thomas Friedman's column in the NY Times on March 31 correctly points out the similarities between the current economic mess and the progressing climate crisis. In both cases we have been operating under a system that rewards small numbers of individuals while all of the risk is borne by taxpayers.

The answer, he argues, is to place more realistic prices on the risks associated both with financial instruments and environmental impacts.

Friedman writes, "Just as A.I.G. sold insurance derivatives at prices that did not reflect the real costs and the real risks of massive defaults (for which we the taxpayers ended up paying the difference), oil companies, coal companies and electric utilities today are selling energy products at prices that do not reflect the real costs to the environment and real risks of disruptive climate change (so future taxpayers will end up paying the difference)."

We have become "addicted to cheap coal," he continues, "that makes for lower electricity prices today but spits out toxic greenhouse gases that have to be paid for by future generations tomorrow"

The full text of his article is below.

THE PRICE IS NOT RIGHT
by Thomas Friedman

"I don’t expect much from the G-20 meeting this week, but if I had my wish, the leaders of the world’s 20 top economies would commit themselves to a new standard of accounting — call it “Market to Mother Nature” accounting. Why? Because it’s now obvious that the reason we’re experiencing a simultaneous meltdown in the financial system and the climate system is because we have been mispricing risk in both arenas — producing a huge excess of both toxic assets and toxic air that now threatens the stability of the whole planet.

Just as A.I.G. sold insurance derivatives at prices that did not reflect the real costs and the real risks of massive defaults (for which we the taxpayers ended up paying the difference), oil companies, coal companies and electric utilities today are selling energy products at prices that do not reflect the real costs to the environment and real risks of disruptive climate change (so future taxpayers will end up paying the difference).

Whenever products are mispriced and do not reflect the real costs and risks associated with their usage, people go to excess. And that is exactly what happened in the financial marketplace and in the energy/environmental marketplace during the credit bubble.

Green Cities in America: Guest blogger Daniel Pike, Mayor of Bellingham, WA

Photo: Paula Tullar

Bellingham, WA is one of the greenest cities in the United  States. Among numerous lists that have cited this city in northwest Washington as among the top five or ten green places to live, Forbes magazine has rated Bellingham the second greenest metropolitan area, and Country Home magazine rated it as the third greenest city. Whether it is first or third or twentieth, there is no question that this is a place where people take their responsibility for the environment seriously.

Today, I am pleased to welcome Bellingham's mayor, Daniel Pike as a guest blogger. I asked Dan to write about his city's green initiatives, its commitment to sustainability, and to what extent that has helped mitigate the current financial crisis. Here's what he had to say. Take it away, Dan. . . .

"Bellingham is a community of about 75,000 people tucked into the northwest corner of Washington State, itself tucked into the northwest corner of the continental United States. As a community, we share the challenges and joys common to most communities: tough finances, a rising unemployment rate, businesses struggling, but also a shared sense of place and connection with our neighbors. What makes us a little different from the mainstream, though, is our commitment to a triple bottom line, or TBL, approach to the issues before us. In Bellingham, the conversations are not about jobs versus the environment, rather the community talks about how to grow better. This is a community whose ethos receives notice from authors such as Bill McKibben and Paul Hawken, and that National Public Radio’s “Marketplace,” in its Nov. 15, 2008 broadcast, described Bellingham as “the epicenter of a new economic model for a post-consumerist economy: locally produced goods and services focused on what surrounding communities need and can sustain.”

Does this approach, does this ethos matter in an era where most economies, large and small, personal and communal, are deteriorating? I think so, though perhaps not for intuitive reasons. Bellingham is not being spared from economic pain because it strives to do right, as a community. However, we are working together well to deal with both the immediate crisis and longer term solutions.

We are, in fact, a community, not just a haphazard collection of souls sharing a living space.

James Howard Kunstler on the Recovery, Suburban Sprawl, Obama, and Wall Street's "Stupendous Orgy of Misbehavior"

James Howard Kunstler has occasionally been described as a purveyor of doom and gloom. His book, The Long Emergency painted a particularly bleak picture of the prospect of living in a post-carbon world - i.e. a future in which the exponentially rising imbalance between supply and demand for petroleum-based fuels has brought economic growth to a standstill and unleashed widespread disruption of the social order.

Pretty scary stuff. But implausible? Perhaps not so much.

 In a recent post to his blog, Jim responds to the charge of being a "doomer" by challenging us to take a clear-eyed look at reality and asking pointed questions about what shape we expect future to take. He writes,

     "At the risk of confirming my critics' dumbest charge -- that I am a "doomer" -- the mandate of clarity requires me to ask: to what state of affairs do we expect to recover? If the answer is a return to an economy based on building ever more suburban sprawl, on credit card over-spending, on routine securitized debt shenanigans in banking, and on consistently lying to ourselves about what reality demands of us, then we are a mortally deluded nation. We're done with that, we're beyond that now, we've crossed the frontier and left that all behind, and we'd better get our heads straight about it."

He goes on to criticize some of the Obama administration's efforts to put the country back on track, and makes a few interesting suggestions about possible alternatives.

Jim Kunstler is nothing if not provocative. In the ten or so years since I first met him I have often marveled at his unwavering rejection of complacency and his steadfast refusal to accept conventional wisdom about almost everything. While occasionally over the top (to understate the case) his observations and the questions he raises are always worth pondering. I reprint the rest of his March 9 posting below. Readers' comments are welcome.

Exxon-funded scientist says CO2 emissions are good for us and we need more

Opinions, it has been said, are like a certain part of our anatomy associated with elimination - everybody has one. That, I suppose, might explain the bizarre testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee last week by Physicist, Dr. William Happer of Princeton University. Happer offered the opinion that we are actually in a CO2 famine - compared with Earth's atmosphere of 80 million years ago - and that increased CO2 emissions would actually be good for mankind.

Happer's testimony, part of which you can see below, drew an incredulous response from the committee's chairwoman, Senator Barbara Boxer who said, "I don't even know how to say this, but a lot has happened since then," before noting that conditions on Earth 80 million years ago were probably not something we would find particularly pleasant today. Boxer later noted that Happer is Chairman of the George C. Marshall Institute, which receives a large part of its funding from Exxon. Hmmmmm.

Happer claims that Earth, during the Pleistocene era (which was actually from 1.8 million years ago to about 10,000 years ago - NOT 80 million years ago) had many times more CO2 in the atmosphere than it does now, and that, as a result, the planet prospered.

In fact, CO2 levels in the Pleistocene - the period when the the planet was much colder and glaciers reached their furthest limit - were roughly 200 ppm (parts per million). Today's atmospheric CO2 level is about 386 ppm.

80 million years ago, by contrast, during the Cretaceous Period, when CO2 levels were 3.7 to 14.7 times the modern pre-industrial value of 285 ppm, the climate was very hot. Ice sheets had melted and sea levels were 120m higher than today. This map, published last year in the journal, Science, shows what the world would look like today with sea levels similar to those of 80 million years ago. The dark blue areas would be completely under water.

Perhaps Dr. Happer would prefer it that way, but I suspect most of us would not.

Back by popular demand: Stephen Colbert on greenwashing by oil companies

There's nothing I can possibly add to this. Just watch and enjoy.

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Prescott Oil Loves the Earth

Power Shift 2009: 10,000 students headed to Washington this weekend to support climate and clean energy policy

Last week, in a post called, "Giant Asteroid on Collision Course With Earth" I blogged about my frustration at the apparent apathy regarding the climate crisis. So I am especially happy to report that an event called Power Shift 09 is bringing 12,000 students to Washington, D.C. this weekend to tell Congress they demand rebuilding the economy and reclaiming their future through bold climate and clean energy policy.

Power Shift '09 is a project of the Energy Action Coalition, which sponsored Power Shift '07 in November of 2007, bringing over 7,000 youth from around the country to Washington, DC area for a long weekend of climate learning and action. Then, on Monday, November 5 over 3,000 of these youth descended on Capitol Hill where they rallied and met with their Senators and Congresspeople to demand bold political action on climate change. Much the same thing is planned for this weekend.

The Energy Action Coalition is made up of 50 student groups from around the country who are demanding to be heard about the future of the planet they are about to inherit. Kudos to all of them. More about that in a future post. For now, please visit the Power Shift '09 website and show your support.

There's still no such thing as clean coal: The Coen brothers' new video for This is Reality.org

If you're a fan of the Joel and Ethan Coen (The Big Lebowski, Raising Arizona, No Country for Old Men, Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?) or if you're just fed up with the coal industry's laughable attempts to portray itself as pro-environment, you'll get a kick out of this new video by the Cohen brothers - the latest in a series of clever 30 second commercials produced by ThisIsReality.org to debunk the myth of clean coal technology.

There is still no such thing as clean coal.

Wake Up, Freak Out - then Get a Grip. Approaching the tipping point on climate change

This brilliant animated film by Leo Murray was just brought to my attention and I wanted to waste no time in posting it here. It does a masterful job of explaining, in lay terms, exactly how close we are to a tipping point, beyond which it may be impossible to prevent the most catastrophic consequences of global warming.

I urge you to watch this lovely, engrossing, terrifying, yet ultimately empowering short film and then send five or ten friends back here to see it for themselves. Ask them to do the same once they've seen it.

Gentle readers, this is not hyperbole. I wish it were, but it's not. We are dangerously close to a point of no return. It is still possible to pull back from the precipice, but that will require lots and lots of people demanding action and refusing to take no for an answer.

This is a matter of survival. The need to act is urgent. We ignore it at our peril.

p.s. You can see the film's script, along with references for all the science behind it here.

Giant asteroid on collision course with Earth!

Okay. Now that I've got your attention, I have a question for you. If a mile-wide asteroid actually were heading for planet Earth, how much media attention do you think it would get?

The answer is obvious. It would be the lead story in every news broadcast, and would appear above the fold on the front page of every newspaper in the world until either; a. it struck, or b. scientists figured out how to prevent it.

And in the second instance, what portion of our resources, human and otherwise, would we devote to implementing plans to avert such a catastrophe? Would anyone ask if it was worth the money?

Yet this is exactly analogous to the situation we currently face. The climate crisis is potentially no less dire than the effects of a civilization-disrupting asteroid impact. So where are the headlines? Why are we not more worried?

This week I had the opportunity to speak to a group of college students at the University of Hartford. Their visual communication class had just completed a project designed to encourage their peers to act more sustainably and I was invited to critique their work. There were posters and other materials advocating things like changing light-bulbs, driving less, conserving water, and several other worthy ideas. Some of the work was quite good, with catchy slogans and attractive graphics. But I couldn't bring myself to give them much of a pat on the back for their efforts.

Changing light bulbs is all well and good, but I wanted to change the subject. Why aren't you more angry, I asked them. You are about to inherit a very fucked-up planet and you should be really pissed off. You should be marching in the streets. You should be organizing protests, sit-ins, moratoriums. You should be taking over the administration building and demanding change. You should be furious.

I am a child of the 60's, I told them. When I was in college the Vietnam war was raging. It was all we could think about. Students everywhere were united in opposition to the war. We were consumed with rage. We were mad as hell and we weren't going to take it anymore.

A whole generation took to the streets, staged protests - some peaceful, some not - and demanded change. And it wasn't only students. Millions of people raised their voices in unison and were heard. Activism played a major role in ending American involvement in that war. Nixon and Kissinger would have continued to prosecute the war but it became clear that the country would no longer support it. When people make enough noise, (enough being the operative word) government has no choice but to respond.

So why are we so passive about global warming? If left unchecked, the cost in human suffering will be no less than from any war. It will be greater. Where is the anger? Where are the protests? Are we sheep?

Baaaaaa.

Personally, I blame the media. During the Vietnam era disturbing images of war appeared in every newspaper every day. Every night on TV we saw flag-draped coffins bearing the remains of young Americans being disgorged from airplanes. Back then the media did its job - we were not allowed to forget for a single day the cost of war.

There was something else, too. It felt personal. Very personal. I and millions of young men of my generation were subject to the draft. Like everyone else, I knew there was a very real possibility I might suddenly find myself on a battlefield in southeast Asia. Once there it was not at all unlikely that I might be killed, or worse, have to kill others. I was lucky, though.

Students today have nothing so tangible to concentrate the mind. But the threat to their future is, if anything, greater. Had I been sent to Vietnam there was a better than even chance that I could have returned home to resume a normal life. But none of us will be able to escape the consequences of a warming planet.

When are we going to do something about it?

Mass transit: a sustainable solution to economic recovery. A Republican shows us how - go figure!

  It's not often that I find reason to praise conservative Republicans, but I'm making an exception for Pat McCrory, the mayor of Charlotte, NC. Largely through his willingness to stick his neck out on an issue he, himself, thought might get him run out of town on a rail, he successfully championed the creation of Lynx, a state-of--the-art light rail system that should serve as a shining example of what US cities should aspire to.

As documented last week in an excellent segment of the PBS television program, NOW, entitled Stimulus Roadblock, McCrory seems to have gotten everything right about what mass transit can do for a city and how to make it work.

Charlotte's downtown, which prior to the opening of Lynx had largely been a 9 to 5 destination for office workers, has blossomed into a vibrant, walkable, mixed-use urban environment. Businesses are thriving and real estate values have surged. In some previously troubled areas that are now connected to the city center by Linx, home prices have doubled - in this economy.

One of the things that McCrory understood about making transit work is that not only do the trains have to be comfortable, attractive, and on time, they also have to be linked to residential areas by high quality pedestrian access. As a result, ridership of the new system is nearly double what was originally anticipated, and new transit-oriented residential development has been encouraged by the city and embraced by developers.

Charlotte's successful experiment with mass transit is a paradigm of how stimulus money could be spent to create sustainable, long-term economic development. The problem, though, as pointed out by the Now segment, is that it is much easier for cities and states to get Federal money to build roads than transit systems.

In fact, cities applying for transit funding in the stimulus plan are, in effect, penalized for their effforts. This must change. Let your representatives in Congress know that you support funding for mass transit.

I highly recommend watching this piece, which you can see here.