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An interview with Cloud Cult!

Indirect greenhouse-gas savings

(Part of the No Sweat Solutions series.)

Previously I pointed out that efficiency, doing more with less, is a key to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. (A lot of people on Gristmill are fans of conservation, doing less with less. I have nothing against this, so long as it is a voluntary choice, but I won't be spending a lot of time on it.)

Normally, when people think of efficiency they think of direct savings -- insulating homes, electric cars, and so on. That is: make the same sort of goods we make now, but more cleverly, so they require fewer inputs to operate. And that is an extremely important kind of efficiency.

But Amory Lovins and Wolfgang Feist pointed out long ago that there is another kind of efficiency. Instead of looking at how to provide the same goods, look at what those goods do for us, and see if there is another way to provide the same service. For example, it remains essential to start making steel, cement, and mill timber more efficiently.

Music to the ears of us corn hataz

From the WSJ energy blog: Is the anti-ethanol crusade beginning to gather steam among mainstream Western publications? Two weeks after The Economist confessed, in a stunned-sounding editorial that it found itself in agreement with Fidel Castro’s vehement critique of foods-as-fuels, Foreign Affairs magazine has also jumped on board. In the magazine’s May edition, two professors […]

The view from Washington

So here I am in Washington (the other one) in a homey B&B just eight blocks from the White House. I came here for a number of reasons, not the least of which is attending a conference called Climate Change and International Development (which was, by the way, recorded, and it is said that videos will be available here.) It was pretty good, and the less-public strategy meeting that followed it today (at the Friends of the Earth offices) was even better. Strategically, very little could be more important than the development folks joining the climate battle. Especially if they do something new.

There's a lot to say here, and I'll not say much of it. I'm hardly an impartial observer and it would get too messy. But I do want to make a couple of bottom line points.

An interview with Craig Minowa of green-leaning band Cloud Cult

Craig Minowa. Imagine the soaring tribal rock of Arcade Fire, the head-nodding beat-pop of Postal Service, and the arty skronk of Modest Mouse, strung together in a loose-limbed, lo-fi pastiche. Toss in half a chamber orchestra and some found-sound collages, and top it off with vocals of almost childlike guilelessness and yearning. That, in a […]

It’s time to accept dire climate realities

((brightlines_include))

A review of recent climate science findings finds that Jim Hansen's bright-line standard and timeframe for global action [1.0ºC limit on further increase in global temperature / 475 ppm cap on atmospheric carbon with <10 years for global action] is, if anything, not conservative enough. A rash of recent reports identify major climate forcings wholly unaccounted for in IPCC models -- such as a five-fold increase in methane releases from Siberian peat bogs -- that support the view of rapid, discontinuous climate change predicted by Hansen.

Energy market projections show that current climate policies will barely dent the ramp-up of fossil fuel use and emissions. U.S. Energy Information Administration (DOE) International Energy Outlook 2006 projects energy-related carbon emissions to increase by 57%, from 25,028 million metric tons in 2003 to 43,676 million metric tons in 2030. Emissions reductions attributable to national environmental policies adopted in furtherance of the Kyoto agreement reduce the EIA reference case by just 58 million metric tons (<1%). Energy market sector leader emissions projections are in the same range; Exxon-Mobil projects an increase from 28 billion to 40 billion tons in the next 25 years (43%).

An increase in carbon emissions in the range 43-57% is more than sufficient to push global temperature above the bright line, roughly between 2020-2030. When the level of atmospheric carbon passes 475 ppm on an upward trajectory, we must assume that Hansen's simple and terrible story -- rapid collapse in Greenland and Antarctic ice shelves, resulting in sea level rise too high and too fast for either civilization or most species to adapt -- will be initiated within the lifetime of our children.

Umbra on home heating

Hi Umbra, My fiancée and I bought a house in October. We plan to green the house up as best we can, and one of our first projects will be how we heat the house. Since we didn’t have any money after buying, we had to limp through this winter with an oil-powered steam boiler […]

Rebuttal ad nauseum

I’m not sure there’s much value left in rebutting Dick Lindzen’s schtick every time it pops up. He keeps saying the same stuff, so the rebuttals keep saying the same stuff, and at this point anyone interested in the schtick or the rebuttal has a panoply of sources close at hand. Nonetheless, Newsweek‘s egregious bad […]

TPM on Kerry on Colbert

I’m sure lots of you follow TalkingPointsMemo, one of the earliest and still best political blogs on the net. They’ve started doing a (rather charmingly low-budget) daily TV show, and today they debuted a clip wherein they interview John Kerry before he goes on the Colbert Report. They also got some interesting footage from backstage. […]

NYT Magazine story: One nation united under green

Tom Friedman, in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine, makes the point that green is the color that can unite the red and blue states.

At Oceana we have found that conservation issues can and do cross party lines. For example, the Bush administration (yes, the Bush administration!) recently -- after working closely with our organization and other groups -- submitted a proposal in the ongoing World Trade Organization talks that would significantly cut fisheries subsidies.