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From Glamp to Glam

Best of in-tents Hello muddah, hello faddah, here we are at Glamp Granada. Glam’rous camping‘s entertaining. And we’ll surely have some fun once we’re deplane-ing. Butler’s tending to the fire. Of chef’s prepped food, we won’t tire. Maid gives pillows a little fluff-it. Why would anybody ever want to rough it? Puff daddy In an […]

On the climate change ‘point of no return’

I've argued that scientists are not overestimating climate change, and in fact are underestimating it because they are omitting crucial amplifying feedbacks from their models. In this post, I'll show how these omissions suggest the climate has a "point of no return" that severely constrains the safe level of human-generated emissions.

A major 2005 study [$ub. req'd] led by NCAR climate researcher David Lawrence, found that virtually the entire top 11 feet of permafrost around the globe could disappear by the end of this century. Using the first "fully interactive climate system model" applied to study permafrost, the researchers found that if we somehow stabilize CO2 concentrations in the air at 550 ppm, permafrost would plummet from over 4 million square miles today to 1.5 million. If concentrations hit 690 ppm, permafrost would shrink to just 800,000 square miles.

Romney on energy

Here’s Romney on energy: … his plan to get America “energy independent, by increasing oil, gas, nuclear, and liquid coal development,” calls for it to be done in an environmentally sound manner.

Small countries are going green

While the western media focuses primarily on what the developed world is doing to solve the climate crisis, there's some great coverage on how Third World countries are greening too. SciDev's "Science in the Himalayas," a series of editorials and features, gives credence to the notion that local, community efforts can be just as effective as large-scale centralized ones. And low-tech solutions are often just as good as their high-tech counterparts.

Nepal's successes in scientific application in recent decades aren't about grandiose hydropower dams or major infrastructure projects.

The new technologies that have worked have been indigenously designed, based on traditional skills and knowledge, and are cheap and easy to use and maintain. In fact, to visit Nepal these days is to see the "small is beautiful" concept of development economist E. F. Schumacher in action.

From Nakarmi's Peltric Sets to multi-purpose power units based on traditional water mills, from biogas plants to green road construction techniques in the mountains, Nepalis have shown that small is not just beautiful but also desirable and possible.

GA state legislature tries to figure out whether climate change is real

Wow. Via the indispensable Aunt Phyllis, this is old school: On Tuesday the Georgia legislature held a hearing called "Climate change: fact or fiction?" Listen to these blasts from the past: “In the media, we hear the gloom and doom side,” said Rep. Jeff Lewis (R-White), chairman of the House Energy, Utilities and Telecommunications Committee […]

Bjorn Lomborg’s new book misunderstands risk and investment

This is a guest essay from Jon A. Anda, President of the Environmental Markets Network, an organization within Environmental Defense focused on legislation to create an efficient carbon market. He was previously a Vice Chairman of Morgan Stanley. —– Bjorn Lomborg’s forthcoming book says to Cool It about global warming. I am anxious to read […]

Seattle enviros face a Hobson’s choice in November

This November, those of us who live in and around Seattle will vote on a $17.7 billion transportation package that would expand light rail (by 50 miles) but also include billions for road expansion -- including roads that will primarily serve sprawling developments to Seattle's south and east, making the package a Hobson's choice for environmentalists. (The state legislature tied the roads and transit votes together last year, on the theory that road supporters will only support transit if it's accompanied by pavement, and vice versa.)

A lot of the debate around whether the package is good or bad, environmentally speaking, has centered around whether the roads part of the package (known as the Regional Transportation Investment District, or RTID) consists mostly of "good" or "bad" roads. There are a lot of elements to this debate, the first of which is: What constitutes a "good" road? Are new HOV lanes "good" (because they serve people who are carpooling) or "bad" (because they're still new road miles), and could they have been created by converting preexisting general-purpose lanes to HOV lanes?

Another issue is whether roads that are designated primarily for freight, but can be used by single-occupancy cars, count as "good" or "bad." Further confusing matters is the question of whether already-clogged roads produce more or fewer greenhouse gases when they're expanded to accommodate more traffic, because traffic moves more smoothly (at least for a little while.)

Given all those variables, it's not surprising that Seattle's environmental community is split on whether RTID/Sound Transit is a good or a bad thing.

The Branhams’ mining permit protests

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This week, Gabriel Pacyniak and Katherine Chandler are traveling throughout southern West Virginia to report on mountaintop removal mining (MTR). They'll be visiting coalfields with abandoned and "reclaimed" MTR mines, and talking with residents, activists, miners, mine company officials, local reporters, and politicians.

We'll publish their reports throughout the week.

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Driving to the north end of Mingo County, W.Va., we get lost and arrive late, which is pretty much par for the course. (Sample directions: ... after you get out of that little town make a right after the bridge, go about a mile and half, make a right after the scenic bridge ... ) Fortunately, Donna and Charlie Branham don't seem to mind, and neither do we. The six-mile drive up the hollow is a pleasure: we're listening to "Coal Country Radio" ("The best country music countdown on Earth") as we wind our way past everything from single-wide trailers with chicken coops to custom-built stone homes.

Entrance to Donna and Charlie Branham's homestead. (photo: Katherine Chandler)

The Nation reports on sustainable revitalization of the New Orleans neighborhood

This article by Rebecca Solnit is reprinted from the Sept. 10, 2007 issue of The Nation, released today, which focuses on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, two years later. Solnit is the author of a dozen books, including, most recently, Storming the Gates of Paradise: Landscapes for Politics.

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The word "will" comes up constantly in the Lower Ninth Ward now; "We Will Rebuild" is spray-painted onto empty houses; "it will happen," one organizer told me. Will itself may achieve the ambitious objective of bringing this destroyed neighborhood back to life, and for many New Orleanians a ferocious determination seems the only alternative to being overwhelmed and becalmed. But the fate of the neighborhood is still up in the air, from the question of whether enough people can and will make it back to the nagging questions of how viable a city and an ecology they will be part of. The majority of houses in this isolated neighborhood are still empty, though about a tenth of the residents are back, some already living in rehabilitated houses, some camped in stark white FEMA trailers outside, some living elsewhere while getting their houses ready. If you measured the Lower Ninth Ward by will, solidarity and dedication, from both residents and far-flung volunteers and nonprofits, it would be among the best neighborhoods in the United States. If you measured it by infrastructure and probabilities, it looks pretty grim. There are more devastated neighborhoods in New Orleans and neighboring St. Bernard Parish, let alone Mississippi and the Delta, but the Lower Ninth got hit hard by Katrina. Its uncertain fate has come to be an indicator for the future of New Orleans and the fate of its African-American majority.

On summer’s end and salad dressing

It’s mid-August and the Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts is filled with crops that are making their final push to ripeness and fruition. On a warm day, the air feels like it is practically vibrating with all that energy. As I drive to the Hampshire College campus for the annual Northeast Organic Farmers’ Association conference, […]