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Whale activists wind up Japan showdown

TOKYO — Animal rights activists said Monday they were ending their harassment of Japanese whalers in the Antarctic for the season, warning that a person could get killed if the confrontation escalated. Japan has been stepping up international pressure to try to rein in the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which has vowed to physically stop […]

Breaking up with my blow-up doll

You like being dirty, but not with toys that are dirty. Unregulated toys can be full of known toxins. Thankfully, there are lots of toys that are better for the Earth and your body; Umbra and two lovebirds show you what to look for. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bea7ljQo6Ig&feature=player_profilepage

Geoengineering is risky but likely inevitable, so we better start thinking it through

The following is a guest essay from Jamais Cascio, a cross-disciplinary futurist specializing in the interplay between technology and society. He co-founded Worldchanging.com, and now blogs at OpenTheFuture.com.

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With the recent release of a detailed comparison between different geoengineering strategies and the launch of a German-Indian joint experiment in ocean-iron-fertilization, the debate over whether geoengineering will have any place in our efforts to combat global warming is one again churning. I've been writing about the geoengineering dilemma since 2005, and Grist's David Roberts -- no big fan of geoengineering -- asked me to give my take on where the issue stands today. My top-line summary?

Geoengineering is risky, likely to provoke international tension, certain to have unanticipated consequences, and pretty much inevitable.

Just to be clear, here's what I want to see happen over the next decade: An aggressive effort to reduce carbon emissions through the adoption of radical levels of energy efficiency, a revolution in how we design our cities and communities, a move away from auto-centered culture, greater localism in agriculture, expanded use of renewable energy systems, and myriad other measures, large and small, that reduce our footprints and improve how we live.

This plan, or something very much like it, is required for us to have the best chance of avoiding disastrous climate disruption. Could we make it happen within the next decade? Definitely. Are we likely to do so? I really want to say yes ... but I can't.

And that's a real problem, because we're not exactly overburdened with global warming response plans that have a solid chance of actually doing something about it in time. We all know that half-measures and denial masquerading as caution certainly won't be enough to avoid disastrous warming; unfortunately, neither will the kinds of ideas still coming out of the world's capitals. Although clearly better than nothing, they simply won't get carbon emissions down far enough fast enough to avoid a catastrophic climate shift.

Here's why: No matter what we do, even if we were to suddenly cut off all anthropogenic sources of carbon right this very second, we are committed to at least another two to three decades of warming, simply due to thermal inertia. Add to that the feedback effects from environmental changes that have already happened: ice cap losses increasing polar ocean temperatures, accelerating overall warming; melting permafrost in Siberia releasing methane, which can be up to 72 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide; overloaded carbon sinks in oceans and soil losing their ability to absorb CO2. These factors combine in a way that could make even our best efforts too slow to avoid disaster.

So what would we do?

Online climate chat: Tuesday, Feb. 10, at 12:45 pm CST

This Tuesday (Feb. 10, 2009) I'll be doing an online chat over on Eric Berger's SciGuy website. We'll be talking about climate, climate change, and everything else climate related. It will be at 12:45 pm CST. If you can't make it, the transcript will be posted (I'll put a link to it in the comments).

Your choice vs. the 'expert' choice in video contest

The following guest post was written by Keith Gaby, communications director for the Environmental Defense Fund's national climate campaign. This was originally posted on Climate 411.

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Who is right when a national environmental group holds a video competition and the public and the "experts" disagree on who should win?

At the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, the jury of film experts chose Forty Shades of Blue as the best dramatic film. The Audience Award went to Hustle & Flow. I don't know which was a better film, but I do know Hustle & Flow went on to earn $20 million in wide release in the U.S., while Forty Shades of Blue topped out at $75,000. I'm sure it doesn't always happen that way, but it goes to show that the experts don't always know what will succeed in the marketplace of ideas.

We at Environmental Defense Fund just finished something a bit like a film festival -- a competition that challenged participants to make a 30-second ad that explains how capping greenhouse gas pollution will help cure our national addition to oil. This week we announced two winners, one selected by our staff and another chosen by thousands of voters online. Like at Sundance, the voters and the judges chose different winners ... in fact, the video chosen by us "experts" came in dead last in the online voting.

I thought it might be interesting to explain our decision and see what others think.

Fighting economic decline and climate change simultaneously

As a new administration took over in Washington in the midst of a massive economic decline, the media kept asking members of the new energy and environment team if the U.S. could "afford" their agenda in light of the economic condition of the nation. (Witness the Washington Post interview with Carol Browner.) The New York Times reported on Jan. 18:

Given a choice between stimulating the economy and protecting the environment, 58 percent of Americans said it was more important to stimulate the economy, compared with 33 percent who chose protecting the environment. In April 2007, 36 percent said it was more important to stimulate the economy, compared with 52 percent who chose the environment.

No doubt the priority given the economy today would be greater, given Friday's numbers on job losses and unemployment.

But it's a silly question and a false, unnecessary choice. It hides the most rational course of action: doing both simultaneously.

The question ignores the fact that a public dollar -- or $1 trillion such dollars -- can be spent in ways that simultaneously:

• produce new jobs and incomes,
• help fight global warming, and
• save money for people on tight budgets.

Public investment in the energy efficiency of homes and other buildings can do all of that -- and might even make it easier for budget-strapped homeowners to pay their mortgages, so it could stabilize neighborhoods and help unfreeze the lending system as well. That's a pretty powerful answer to those who say we can't afford green concerns because of economic problems.

A dollar can accomplish more than one objective at a time. The problem is that we have come to think of "efficiency" as pursuing a single objective at the expense of all others, even those that might logically be complementary. Environmental advocates see industry only as sacrificing the environment to the efficient pursuit of profit maximizing. Industry for too long has seen environmentalists only as regulating and constraining their pursuit of profits. Of course, it is difficult for private parties -- businesses pursuing profits, or neighborhood residents protecting their air or well water quality -- to pursue multiple objectives at once. That's a role for government. It's a role government plays exceptionally well.

This brings us to the U.S. in 2009: facing huge government deficits, uncertain energy costs, rising unemployment and growing poverty, and a threat from global warming that requires action sooner rather than later. The spending legacy from 2008 includes a $700 Billion "Toxic Assets Relief Fund," of which half has been spent in ways that seem to have had no effect, and plans going forward include spending the other $350 Billion of TARF money and implementing a massive, ~$800 billion stimulus plan.

If there was ever a time we needed efficiency in pursuit of multiple goals, it's now.

Decent media is possible

Witness as AlJazeera English does a segment on carbon cap-and-trade that is about 4,587,209 times more intelligent and informative than anything you will ever see on a U.S. cable network:

Attending a conference that calls for action on the Salish Sea

Starting today, I'll be spending three days at the Puget Sound Georgia Basin Ecosystem Conference learning about the health -- or perhaps un-health -- of the Salish Sea, a term that refers to waters in both Washington state and British Columbia, including the Puget Sound, the Strait of Georgia, and the Strait of Juan de Fuca (see map at right).

Co-hosted by the Puget Sound Partnership and Environment Canada, this biennial conference is touted as the largest and most comprehensive scientific research and policy event in the region. Those attending include scientists, policymakers, Coast Salish Tribes and First Nations, biz folk, educators, and concerned citizens.

I'll be sitting in on sessions about climate change, citizen science, and the future of tidal energy in the Puget Sound; listening to keynote speeches from tribal leaders and Gov. Chris Gregoire (D); hobnobbing with fishy folks; and generally reveling in the marine biology nerdyness of it all. I promise to report back regularly on what I learn while I'm there, wifi-permitting.

Deployment precedes innovation

In energy efficiency circles, the story of Jan Schilham's 1997 redesign of a pumping system for a Shanghai carpet-making factory is famous. Schilham saved 92 percent of pumping energy and lowered capital costs by using a well-known principle: Pumping water slowly through fat, straight pipes reduces friction and saves energy relative to pumping the same volume quickly through narrow twisty pipes.

Why isn't it always done that way? Because the bigger pipes cost more than the energy saving. Schilham's insight was that energy is not the only payback. Fatter pipes lower the size of the pumps and motors required, so even with the additional plumbing expenses, total capital costs are lower. Energy savings in this context are free, or better than free.

In a narrow sense, this was an improvement in cost accounting, not technology. Nothing unknown or untested was deployed. No breakthrough enabled the lower costs -- they'd always been possible. Schilham simply counted a benefit that had been overlooked, demonstrating that a technique usually considered unprofitable actually saved money.

The key that allowed Schilham to exercise his genius was that Interface carpets had already decided to reduce its ecological footprint drastically. "Whether" had already been decided -- Schilham was worrying about the "how." Essentially he was in the position of someone complying with a standards-based efficiency rule.

Ditty Bops nominated for Grammy thanks to sustainable CD packaging

Remember when album art mattered? My college band, Groove or Die, had the idea of one-upping the Rolling Stones by making our album jacket out of an actual pair of pants.

That idea, like most things Groove or Die-related -- including actually recording music -- never quite made it out of the dining hall.

This trip down memory lane was brought on by the Ditty Bops, whose efforts to create an album out of recycled materials and soy-based inks earned their album Summer Rains a Grammy nomination for "Best Recording Package" (that's what they're calling album art in this post-vinyl age). As I have seen them perform wearing nothing but recycled plastic bags, in a sense they one-upped Groove or Die by wearing album material instead of making album material out of what they wear.