Gristmill

Trading fossils for fossil fuels

It may not be as expansive or awe-inspiring as, say, an Alaskan refuge, but a 12-million-year-old snail-fossil bed in Thailand is at risk of being destroyed in the name of insatiable energy consumption. While a state-sponsored firm digs away for coal on 10 of the area's 17 acres, snailhuggers protest that it's a loss to science and history. "But if we conserve the entire site," a representative from the power authority sputtered, "we would lose 265 million tons of coal worth 130 billion baht [about $3 billion]." Still, the company recently suspended operations for two weeks, giving geologists a chance to make their case. Go, rockhound gang.

Might as well jump

To a single individual, a problem like global warming can seem vast and hopeless. One thing we constantly hear from readers is, "What can I do?"

Well, now you have an answer: Jump. The folks at World Jump Day are trying to sign up 600,000,000 people in the Western hemisphere to jump simultaneously on July 20, 2006, at 7:39:13 PM (Pacific time -- you can find your local time on their website).

Why? Well, according to German researcher Hans Niesward and his colleagues at the Department of Gravitationsphysik at ISA/München, if 600 million people jump all at once, the earth could be bumped into a slightly new orbit. The result: Longer daytime hours, a more habitable average global temperature (particularly helpful to developing countries around the equator), and no more global warming!

There's something so hopeful and slightly melancholy about this. If nothing else, I appreciate it aesthetically.

So, for my part, I'm jumping!

African life spans

Not too long ago in Daily Grist we covered the recent population figures released by the U.N. Among the disturbing figures therein was the fact that the lifespan of the average African has declined by some 15 years in the last decade. It boggles the mind. And since it boggles, visual aids help. So go check out this chart on Marginal Revolution, which makes the point visually.

Pollute, two, three four

I'm just going to hazard a guess, here, but it seems like if the Israeli military is a major source of environmental damage, other similar outfits in nations around the world probably are too. Note to all the big guys: war is good for, as they say, absolutely nothing. Good god, y'all.

Limiting CO2 emissions: smart business

Eric beat me to it, but I wanted to point to a WaPo editorial making what should by now be an obvious point: cutting carbon dioxide emissions can be a profitable undertaking. Author Michael Northrop marshals boatloads of evidence, from business...

For example, six companies -- IBM, DuPont, BT (British Telecom), Alcan, NorskeCanada and Bayer -- have each reduced emissions by at least 60 percent since the early 1990s, collectively saving more than $4 billion in the process.

to national government...

British Prime Minister Tony Blair recently told the Economist that between 1990 and 2002 Britain trimmed emissions 15 percent, while boosting its economy 36 percent.

to cities...

Toronto has decreased greenhouse gas releases from municipal facilities by 40 percent and is saving $2.7 million annually through energy efficiency improvements. In addition, the city earns $1.5 million annually by selling electricity generated from methane gas captured at three municipal landfills.

There's more where all that came from. It's all anecdotal, of course, but at a certain point the weight of proof shifts over to the other side.

Why would we think cutting emissions costs too much? Emissions are waste. Pollution signals inefficiency. Attempts to become more efficient, to do (and make) more with less, are the very soul of capitalism. As Northrop says:

Only serious, across-the-board federal and international policies and programs will solve the problem of global warming. Unfortunately, concerted action is unlikely to occur as long as administration officials and some members of Congress continue to use worn-out arguments against limiting carbon dioxide releases, even as hundreds of multinational corporations and smaller businesses are proving them wrong. Meanwhile, these individual initiatives offer valuable insights and lessons for the path ahead.

SHINE

Yesterday I mentioned the upcoming SHINE (Solar High-Impact National Energy) initiative. It's been released, and it's a doozy. I was planning to write a big long post about it, and then I remembered: That's why God invented hyperlinks. So go, immediately, and read Joel Makower's quick roundup of the initiative, its details and its effects. Then go read the summary on Clean Edge. Then, if you're ambitious, read the report itself (PDF). This is a big deal -- Joel, along with Clean Edge and the Solar Catalyst Group, have been working on it for over a year.

Here are the three prongs of the initiative:

• Solar Utilization National Underwriting Plan (SUNUP): a federal block-grant program, providing matching funds to states to implement innovative and cost-effective solar installation programs;
• U.S. Rooftop Initiative for Solar Energy (U.S. RISE): an aggressive, long-term federal commitment to purchase solar systems for government facilities and operations; and
• American Solar Advancement Prize (ASAP): a high-stakes, high-reward competition to develop and deploy new technologies and systems that could dramatically accelerate the reduction in solar’s costs within a decade.

The next time someone tells you solar "isn't ready," send them this document. The SHINE plan would require 5 cents out of every tax dollar already invested in nuclear, coal, and natural gas. The investment would pay itself back in saved energy costs in 10 years, so it would be revenue neutral. By 2025, it would push the cost of solar PV down to 80 cents per installed watt, cost-competitive with coal and natural gas -- oh yeah, and completely clean.

Seriously, go read about it. It's a nice little picture of what positive government action would look like. Remember positive government action?

Solar Tower

I'm sure I'm the last kid on the ecoblogospheric block to point to this, but in case anyone hasn't seen it yet: The massive Solar Tower project has found a home, in the Australian outback. If it really gets built -- and it's starting to look like it might just happen -- this thing will truly be one of the wonders of the world. For one thing, at 3,280 feet, it will be nearly double as tall as the world's current tallest structure, Canada's CN Tower. At the base of the hollow cylidrical tower will be 25,000 acres of solar "skirt." The air under the skirt is heated by the sun and rises naturally through the tower, powering 32 wind turbines inside it. It will generate as much power as a small nuclear reactor -- only it will be completely safe. The scale of the thing boggles the imagination. Check out this video artist's rendering (wmv file). Wow.

Deathy death death

There's a little story in the Berkeleyan on a panel discussion of the "Death of Environmentalism." Shellenberger was there to defend it -- sounds like he got a pretty hard time:

Harte, who conducts research into the ecological impacts of climate change, objected primarily to the first half of the essay, "Environmentalism as a Special Interest." That section, in Harte's assessment, was "deficient in its logic" and "laden with what I would call postmodern gibberish" and "overly broad generalizations" about environmentalists. The authors, he added, provided "no analysis" of why Europe is moving aggressively to address global warming, while the United States is dragging its heels.

Norgaard took a dimmer view. "I didn't like Part 1 or Part 2," he said, adding that he found the entire critique "quite shallow." Norgaard, an "ecological economist," faulted the paper's authors for, among other things, bemoaning the movement's alleged failure to frame the issue in moral terms while relying heavily on polling data and focus groups in support of their arguments.

Gelobter was a bit more charitable, observing that "as a movement-building piece," at least, "the report has a lot going for it." Nonetheless, he was sharply critical of the authors' "denial" of activists who have gone before, and their refusal to build on earlier movement successes. "They are obsessed in their piece with ancestors," he said, "the better to kill them, I think."

Gelobter also took issue with the authors' methodology, which focused on interviews with some two dozen environmentalists from large, mainstream organizations. But those leaders, he said, do not reflect the full spectrum of environmental activists.

Update [2005-2-28 15:19:13 by Dave Roberts]: By the way, I take great umbrage to Grist being referred to as "the backwoods of the online." At five years and counting, I think we qualify as the old growth of the online!

Where there’s smoke, there’s inaction

In a boost for clean air and public health, an international tobacco treaty went into effect yesterday. Signed by 168 nations and ratified by 57, the agreement addresses advertising, packaging, smuggling, and taxes. More than two-thirds of the ratifiers are developing nations -- which are expected to account for 70 percent of smoking-related deaths by 2020.

One country that has signed, but not not yet ratified, the pact is -- wait for it! -- the U.S. "This treaty will save millions of lives ... the U.S. is missing the boat," says Kathryn Mulvey, executive director of Corporate Accountability International. "As both the global tobacco treaty and the Kyoto Protocol take effect with the U.S. on the sidelines, we are calling on our government to join with the global community in prioritizing people's lives over the profits of giant corporations."

Best of luck with that.