350 at the Dunes

Ken Scott's stop action film of the 350 on the dunes.

We had to go to Traverse City anyway, so I told Anna that we would spend the extra fossil fuels to swing by the dunes and join a group of people who were going to make a giant 350 on the dunes to draw attention to climate change. She said "Great!" and asked if her friend Madison could come along.

When we got there, people were sort of milling around and saying hi to each other. It was interesting to try and figure out who was there for climate change and who was there to just visit the dunes. Jim Lively stood on a picnic table, hollered a welcome, explained the event, and then asked us to divide into three groups, one for each digit. I was drawn to the small groups of people picnicking and watching; I made a quick pass down the picnic tables inviting the onlookers to "help us make the number 350 on the dunes as part of an international effort to focus government attention on the challenge of climate change." I knew I probably wouldn't get many takers, but I wanted everyone there to know why we were doing what we were doing.

I'm the person in the teal shirt and dark jeans running to catch up to the last of the "0" group. Anna and Madison were wearing matching neon green T shirts and pink shorts, at the top of the 5. In the stop-action movie it seems like we were rushing, but at the time we had plenty of time for crosstalk, even as we kept our eyes on our director. The lady next to me fretted about people who who coming in late to join. They weren't wearing the bright blues and greens mentioned in the email invitation to the event. "That's OK," we reassured her, "we need all the help we can get." It reminded me of the bickering about "I'm greener than you!" that often pops up in environmentalist circles and discourages neophytes from taking small steps because they can't see themselves going whole hog.

In the movie we are only laying down for a second. In real life we had time to look at the clouds blowing by. A guy to my left started thinking aloud:

"350. That's the percentage of the carbon of what, again?"

I spoke to the sky, "We need to achieve a target of 350 parts per million of CO2 in our atmosphere in order to avoid catastrophic levels of climate change. Scientists agree that 350 is our target."

"And where are we now?"

Across the "0" someone yelled, "We are over 380. Getting close to 390."

An older voice said, "We need to get our governments to get serious about this. We can all do things on our own, but governments need to become involved. A younger voice suggested "Go to 350.org."

We stood up again, on cue, and then jumped up and down and did some waves. I was reminded that I was never meant to be a cheerleader. The elderly lady next to me confessed that she couldn't jump. I said, "I think I'm jumping but I'm afraid that my pants are staying where they were."

We all trooped down again on cue, and then went off to our own pursuits. I fed the girls a picnic lunch and they set off to play on the dunes, the better to justify the extra gas that we had spent on such a frivolous stunt. Usually we come to the dunes when family visits. I was impressed at the discipline of the group that came on the tour bus and dutifully trooped up and down the dunes in a line. I saw many examples of our typical family gathering, when a few people go up and then disappear for what seems like hours while others wait at the bottom wondering if the first group is lost.

I sat for over an hour waiting for Anna and Madison. I talked to the family sharing our picnic table and turned a forgotten video camera over the a park ranger. I fielded questions from people who had seen the 350 and wondered what it was (a family reunion?) I explained that this action was both a precursor to international events being planned for October 24th and a follow up to Bill McKibben's talk in Traverse City last fall, when he saw mentioned on his own dune tour how cool it would be to se folks depict a 350 on that landscape.

Finally we packed up and drove home, getting ice cream bars in Maple City and dropping Madison off at her house. All traces of 350 were gone from the dunes, but Anna and Madison had put two new tracks on by rolling all of the way down.

It was nice this morning to see that the EPA is going to start regulating greenhouse gas emissions on the nations biggest producers, mainly power plants. Even dunes can move.


P.S. There are more pictures of the event here.

Climate-Energy – Leelanau’s Future Sustainability

Wednesday April 15 5:30 to 9:00 PM Old Art Building in Leland

“Climate-Energy – Leelanau’s Future Sustainability”

Come to Leland’s Old Art Building at 5:30 for a delicious chili and

biscuits supper, followed at 7 with presentations by guest

speakers Steve Smiley and Dave Barrons.

Donations at the door

Sponsored by the Leelanau Democrats.

Saying No to Coal

One of the questions at Bill McKibben's talk was about the meaning of the phrase on many politician's lips: "clean coal".

McKibben was very clear that, from a climate change point of view, there is no such thing as clean coal. We know how to use stack scrubbers to take out the sulphur and lead from coal plant emissions, but any technology to remove the carbon and put it back underground is only imagined, not in in use.

After the talk, the Sierra Club organizer was overwhelmed by the people lining up to sign a petition to Governor Granholm asking her to:

fight against climate change by issuing an executive order that prevents the permitting of more coal plants until stronger protections are put in place against dangerous global warming carbon dioxide pollution.

You can sign the petition too, online, just click here.

Notes from Bill McKibben's Traverse City Talk

About halfway through McKibben's talk it dawned on me that I had posted, last fall, parts of his essay entitled Climate Crisis in National Geographic magazine. I quoted from it with abandon because I so admired his calm way of talking about a situation that tends to overwhelm people into ignoring or denying it. I also admired his ability to break this big problem down into manageable pieces.

The word "connections" is in the title of this blog because I'm usually quite good at connection ideas from many different sources. But I've been overworked this summer. I knew I wanted to go see Bill McKibben, and so did Liz. I wrote a rather lame announcement of his appearance, forgetting that I could have quoted myself from a year ago.

Back then I described how the people around me were living in two different worlds:

Most folks seem to recognize that the world is getting warmer, and that something needs to be done. I have seen the average size cars in the parking lot shrink. I am seeing people considering relocating to be closer to work, or looking for jobs closer to home. Nobody brags about their new snowmobiles anymore. I also have small, concerned conversations with people who are worried about the future but unable to figure out the best way to prepare for change or to shoulder their responsibility.

Watching the Republican convention last week was truly watching another world. While most of the people I talk with are looking for strategies for using less energy, the people chanting "Drill, Baby, Drill!" on the floor of the Republican convention seemed to think that finding more oil to burn would automagically fix everything.

McKibben's talk was calmer, more thoughtful, and much more grounded in everyday reality. McKibben has a quiet, everyman persona, much like talking to one of my more reticent neighbors. He has a habit of rubbing the back of his head as he formulates his thoughts, much like a farmer swatting flies away with his tractor hat. He used a lot of self-deprecating humor; it was interesting to me that after a while the women were still responding to these jokes but the men were silent.

He spoke of two different worlds. He described the mood in the world of climate scientists as "terrified" and related the new evidence that suggests that climate change is progressing faster than most had believed possible. He described the response in the world of policy making that was basically no response at all, and told the story of a walk across Vermont that eventually included about 1000 people meeting in the capital and asking their elected leader to pledge support for a goal of an 80% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

"80% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050" is included in Obama's platform. (McCain's goal is 66% by 2050). Nobody was talking about any goals fro 2050 before McKibben and his friends started walking. This was one of his main points -- that regardless of how cynical the American people have become about the political process, the process can still be made to work.

McKibben's new goal is to publicize the number 350. He wants the world to embrace a target of 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, the number that we need to attain in order to stop the course of dangerous climate change. Before the industrial revolution, before we started burning large quantities of fossil fuels, the Earth's atmosphere was about 280 parts per million of CO2. This year, in 2008, the number is 387 and gaining every year.

How do we do this? McKibben spoke of how we keep looking for a "silver bullet" that will fix things without too much individual effort. We tried that approach with ethanol, and the results have not been good. He introduced a new metaphor: "silver buckshot" to describe the many smaller changes that are going to add up to the change we need:

Make no mistake--getting back to 350 means transforming our world. It means building solar arrays instead of coal plants, it means planting trees instead of clear-cutting rainforests, it means increasing efficiency and decreasing our waste. Getting to 350 means developing a thousand different solutions--all of which will become much easier if we have a global treaty grounded in the latest science and built around the principles of equity and justice. To get this kind of treaty, we need a movement of people who care enough about our shared global future to get involved and make their voices heard. ( from 350.org)

The video at the top of this post is part of the international effort to publicize the 350 goal worldwide. The is more of an explanation of this effort at www.350.org. McKibben was enthusiastic about the potential of using the internet to organize a worldwide citizens' movement, saying "If there is a reason for the internet, if God decided that humans needed to create the internet at this point in history, it is surely so that we can use it to solve the climate crisis, the most dangerous problem we have ever faced."

I think that we are not facing this problem because we are scared. We have amped up our our economy on cheap energy for so long that we fear that no more cheap energy means, as one audience member put it, "a return to the horse and buggy days." McKibben cited surveys in which Americans have been asked, every year since 1956, how happy they are. Every year since 1956 we report that we are less happy, even though our consumption of material goods has increase threefold since then. McKibben spoke of how our bigger homes, spread out across the landscape and the miles of roads to connect them all have left us all more isolated and lonelier.

Bill McKibben's new book is Deep Economy, The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future. His premise is that rebuilding our communities is neccesary for both energy efficiency and to reach the sense of well-being that we have been seeking, but not finding, through our last half century consumption binge. While I'm skeptical of uniform measures of happiness, I find such satisfaction in the nuances of community that I'm interested to read the new book.

Bill's Traverse City talk can be heard online here.

Bill McKibben in TC on Sunday

Nationally acclaimed author Bill McKibben will speak at Lars Hockstead Auditorium this Sunday from 6-9 pm. McKibben is an author, educator, and environmentalist with a respected voice among those who are envisioning the post peak-oil world. His latest book, Deep Economy, advocates reviving local economies as a tool in fighting climate change.

Liz and I will be attending this event together. One thing I have heard over and over again from college kids this summer is the idea that, for them oil is the past. They want to face climate change instead of avoiding it. They don't expect oil to last through the next decade, let alone through their lifetimes. They are looking for walkable lives, or at settling in places where there is public transportation (and, of course, a night life.). Nobody is interested in investing their careers in old technology. The guy who was at mechanic's school said "Nobody wants to waste time learning gasoline engines. There's no future in it. We're all learning diesel."

The McKibben should be interesting, both for the speaker and the crowd.

The Garden --What's new

The garden is almost in, everything except that patch of reclaimed ground across the driveway. Many things are different this year, as I adapt to a changing climate and a changing family.

I'm trying out some things that we used to think were too heat loving for our area. I have planted peanuts, sweet potatoes and okra for the first time this year. I am also paying much more attention to building the soil and using green manures, planting buckwheat on the part that I won't plant until later and planting the paths in white clover instead of just letting them stay bare ground. My timing is good on that last part as we have had more than our share of rain this spring, but I was really thinking of the atmosphere, as the only method of carbon sequestration that makes any sense to me is the old fashioned method, putting carbon back into the soil.

Here in Leelanau we have lots of carbon-deprived soil to restore. While visitors think of our area as relatively pristine, when I survey my soil I'm reminded of the history of Northern Michigan. It was once primeval forests, but around the turn of the last century the penninsula was strip mined for its trees, leaving nothing but sand once the rains came. My garden soil is rare for its higher organic matter content, but if I let a patch lay bare for any time at all the peat blows away leaving a surface coating of sand.

I used to think that when I neglected my soil I was only hurting myself. Thinking of keeping the atmosphere healthier by building the soil is something new, a new motivation to do what has long been the right thing.

Liz is working up the road at Meadowlark Farm this summer, a Community Supported Agriculture truck farm. In many cases she is now helping to produce food for the same families she has known as babysitter, church member, and schoolmates. When I knew she was going to work there I changed my plans a little, focusing on trying new things as I know that she will bring home plenty of the old standbys when they come in season. Last winter we really wished we had more frozen pesto, dried sweet peppers and dried zucchini so I planted more of those.

Climate Change Comes before the Senate

The news was All Obama All Night last night, but the US Senate spent yesterday debating a bill to address climate change. The Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act is meant to reduce US carbon emissions using the cap-and-trade strategy.

The bill calls for a cap on greenhouse-gas emissions starting in 2012, with electric utilities, refineries, and the industrial and transportation sectors required to cut their emissions 19 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and a 71 percent by 2050. Other provisions of the bill are expected to reduce greenhouse gases from additional emitters 66 percent by 2050.

For the primary industries covered, emissions cuts would be achieved through a cap-and-trade system that would let polluting entities buy and sell the right to emit carbon. About 20 percent of emissions credits would be auctioned initially; the rest would be given out free to emitters and states. The percentage of credits auctioned instead of given away would increase gradually over time. (Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have both advocated for auctioning 100% of credits from the beginning, a position widely supported by enviros.)

Some new provisions in the bill are intended to help consumers deal with any increases in energy prices. There's an $800 billion consumer tax relief package and a $911 billion allowance to local electricity and gas utilities to help them cushion consumers from price swings, invest in renewables, and promote efficiency. This would all be paid for by the revenue from auctioning emissions credits, expected to total $3.3 trillion over the life of the bill. Funds from the auction would also go to worker transition programs, block grants to local governments for energy-efficiency programs, international adaptation programs, and deficit reduction.

Negotiations between environmentalists and industry reps have been going on for a few years now, hammering out compromises on how carbon credits are to be measured, awarded, and traded. The revenue from auctioning carbon credits will be a new source of government revenue; theoretically this money will be used to fight the climate battle on other fronts, but in practice we always need to watch out for pork. It doesn't help that the program depends on another futures market at a time when the popular press is blaming such markets for high food and fuel prices.

Joseph Romm, the really smart energy and environment guy, is live blogging on the debate at Climate Progress. There's also a summary of the debate so far here.

As a casino dealer, not an energy analyst, I have concerns about any cap and trade bill that does not include a 100% auction system. When credits are "grand fathered in" it creates a system that rewards the behavior we were trying to eliminate. When the process is destined to take time and the signs point towards even a little bit of monetary value for pollution that an industry is already producing, the way to win the game is to artificially increase your emissions now so that you have more emission credits to sell later. I wonder if this sort of thinking isn't responsible for Michigan's mini boom of coal plant investing.

I don't get mad about people who "game the system". We're humans; that's what we're good at. We are also smart enough to design better systems, if we try.

Climate Change: No More "Belief" Debate

It was nice to see the headline "McCain Differs With Bush on Climate Change". Suddenly, finally, we are not debating whether we believe in climate change, we are beginning the debate on how to best address climate change.

I've said all along that my two big issues in this presidential election are climate change and restoring our constitution. It looks like we might see an actual discussion of one of my issues between now and November. I'm getting ready by studying Obama's energy policy and McCain's Cap and Trade proposal and climate change page.

Obama is talking cap-and-trade, too, but it is only one part of his comprehensive plan. Obama specifies a 100% auction cap and trade system; McCain is not very specific, so it would appear that he intends to "grandfather in" some current carbon emitters. Doing so has been criticised as amounting to a windfall for existing polluters.

Of course, making a serious effort at combating climate change will take a whole host of plans, not just a cap and trade plan. Obama is ahead of the pack on this, addressing everything from conservation to reinventing the electrical grid. I think that we will see more ideas from McCain, and I'm welcoming the chance for a healthy debate.

The Right to Dry

Liz sent along an article from the NY Times A Line in the Yard: The Battle Over the Right to Dry Outside :

Tumble dryers, like sport utility vehicles, are verging on an image problem: once symbols of economic success, they have morphed into icons of environmental disregard. The gas guzzlers of household appliances, electric dryers use about as much energy as a refrigerator — consuming more than 6 percent of household energy — even though they are used only intermittently.

And there is a cheap and easy, carbon-free alternative. “A clothesline is not a solar panel or a Prius — it’s something that everyone can afford,” said Alexander Lee, founder of Project Laundry List, which promotes sustainable technology in the home.

At issue are subdivision covenants that prohibit outdoor clotheslines. Some people hang their clothes anyway, as a sort of civil disobedience. It's a nice way of starting the conversation to say "I used to love my dryer, but now I can't load it without thinking about how it's wasting energy and accelerating climate change." Others are taking a more systemic approach, petitioning states and provinces to outlaw clothesline bans.

Project Laundry List combines tips on clothesline advocacy with tips on how to do laundry and save energy. I tried their technique for drying towels hung bag style on a windy day and found that it did produce towels almost as soft as machine dried.

I keep thinking of Brother Tim's account of his recent visit to Shanghai, where he saw lots of spanking new high rise buildings and clotheslines everywhere. Here in the US, we seem to be split between "technology will save us" and "technology is evil". Sometimes old fashioned technology, like clotheslines, is just the right fit.

Which Way Amtrak?

I've been following the news on Amtrak since Liz started going back and forth to school on the train. Well, sort of on the train....the closest Amtrak comes is to Grand Rapids or Kalamazoo. We usually drive her to Kalamazoo, a still a four hour drive, but closer than going all the way to Chicago. We put her on the train and drive back home; by the time we come in the door, she has come into Chicago, switched to the Metra, walked home from her stop, and is just about walking into her dorm room. We wish that the train came farther north, or that the bus trip to meet the train wasn't so time-consuming. But we're glad that she can take the train at least partway.

If President Bush has his way, Amtrak will be going backwards. The president's proposed 2009 budget includes a 40% cut in Amtrak funding. Amtrak ridership is rising, along with gas prices and airline delays. We need more investment in low-carbon transportation alternatives, not less.

Last October, the US Senate passed the Passenger Rail Improvement and Investment Act, which will provide Amtrak with a stable source of funding through 2011, and provide for expansion of passenger routes using a 80/20 match of federal and state funds. We are still waiting for sponsorship of the corresponding House bill, but it is already the basis of efforts across the country to add or restore intercity rail services.

When Liz first started riding the train in 2006, you almost had to be a broke college student or a climate change visionary to put up with the poor service. Sometimes the train was on time, but once it fell a little behind, it just got later and later as it sat by the side and let freight trains pass it by. It seems that the passenger trains were allotted a certain time slot on the track, and if it fell behind schedule, it had to wait for an open slot instead of going ahead of the freight. So I was interested to read about this study that "describes how delays to Amtrak trains that operate over freight railroad lines cost the company almost $137 million in fiscal year 2006, an amount equal to 30 percent of its federal operating subsidy." It seems that, by law, passenger trains always had priority over freight, but the tracks are owned by the freight companies and nobody did anything about it when they put their own business first.

Liz thinks that the trains have become much more reliable since she started riding. I wonder if the improvement is due to different priorities or because the economy has slowed and so there is less freight moving. I don't think that moving freight is unimportant. The rise in just in time manufacturing depends on moving freight quickly and reliably. Passengers and freight competing for space on the same aging tracks is just another facet of our nation's failure to keep investing in infrastructure. Much made about jobs moving overseas due to cheaper labor, but I wonder if the future belongs to the nation with the more up to date railroads.

If so, we'd better look at Shanghai. Great Lakes Guy posted a story about the high speed mag lev train they're building for passenger service. It's top speed is over 300 miles per hour; normal operating speed is about 268 MPH:

That means, if we were building this sort of advanced transportation technology in the United States, you could get from Detroit to Chicago in just over one hour. It's at least a 4-hour car ride if you're hauling the mail down I-94.

Chicago to Minneapolis, nearly a 7-hour drive, would take less than 2 hours. Cleveland to Pittsburgh? Be there in 30 minutes. No gas fillups, no traffic jams, no exorbitant downtown parking fees.

With that sort of perspective, it just doesn't seem all that extravagant when I wish for the sort of train service that was routine in the US around, say 1950.

Granholm Pushes Alternative Energy for Michigan

I missed the State of the State address. There was nothing exciting about the news coverage of the State of the State address. But I heard the end of Governor Granholn's radio town meeting yesterday, when she was talking about luring alternative energy industries to Michigan by making a commitment to use alternative energy to meet the state's needs. I was enthralled. After all that "one state recession" talk, it is wonderful to hear her so comprehesively articulate the whole range of competitive advantages that Michigan has.

Here is part of the transcript of the State of the State address:

Why alternative energy? Because - to borrow a line from Wayne Gretzky - if you want to win, "don't skate to where the puck is - skate to where the puck is going."

The puck is going to alternative energy.

Any time you pick up a newspaper from here on out and see the terms "climate change" or "global warming," just think: "jobs for Michigan."

Because of the need to reduce global warming and end our dependence on expensive foreign oil, the renewable energy and energy efficiency industries will create millions of good paying jobs.

There's no question that these jobs are coming to our nation. The only question is, where?

I say we will win these jobs for Michigan and replace the lost manufacturing jobs with a whole new, growing sector.

Why us? Because, no other state - indeed few places in the world - have what we have to offer: our wind, our water, our woods - and thanks to the working men and women of Michigan - our skilled workforce.

Look at each of these resources.

The unique geography of our peninsulas makes us windy. Experts have said that we have the second best potential for wind generation and production in the country. In fact, the wind turbines we'd use to capture that power can be built right here in Michigan, because we have what's needed: manufacturing infrastructure; available factory space; a skilled workforce. And water - the Great Lakes - are one of the best ways to ship these huge turbines.

That Pure Michigan water will do even more for us. The natural movement, the waves of our Great Lakes waters, creates enormous energy. We are talking with businesses right now about coming to Michigan to convert water currents into electric currents.

And wood! The wood waste from the pulp and paper industry is being used to produce the next generation of biofuels. Cutting-edge companies like Mascoma, Chemrec, NewPage, and others are turning wood waste into fuel for your vehicles, and they want to come here because of our vast sustainable forests.

Our automotive base is also a huge asset: we are the automotive research capital of the world, and we are building the engines of the future - hybrids, clean diesel, electric, fuel cells, flexfuel - all of that is being, and will continue to be, researched, designed, and produced right here in Michigan.

There may be one or two other states that are sunnier than we are, but we are already a huge player in the solar energy industry. We have in Michigan the world's largest producer of the stuff that makes solar panels work. Polycrystalline silicon. Made by Hemlock Semiconductor right here in Michigan. They are in the middle of a billion dollar expansion, hiring 500 people in the Saginaw area. They have even bigger plans. And just last week, Dow Solar Solutions announced it was locating a new $52 million manufacturing facility in Midland, focusing on solar energy generating building materials. Saginaw Valley can be the Silicon Valley for the alternative energy business!

Even waste is being used: companies are taking household trash in landfills and converting it to green energy - the Lansing Board of Water and Light is doing it right now. Farms are turning animal waste into methane gas. Opportunities are everywhere in Michigan to create green energy.

Michigan must do as any successful business does. To compete, we need to capitalize on our natural advantages. For us, it's our geography and our history. Auto ingenuity. And our solar edge. Wind. Woods. Water. Workforce. Even waste. If we do this right, Michigan can be the alternative energy capital of North America, and create thousands and thousands of jobs.

But, for Michigan to win the race for those high-paying jobs, we have to out-hustle the competition. How?

First, we must commit as a state to use alternative energy to meet our own energy needs.

To understand the connection between renewable energy and jobs, just look at Sweden - a country with striking resemblances to our state: the same size population, similar geography with two-thirds of their land covered by forests, a strong automotive sector. Sweden set high goals for their use of renewable energy. The result? They created over 2,000 businesses and 400,000 jobs in their renewable energy sector. 400,000 jobs!

Alternative energy companies have watched closely as 25 other states have set aggressive goals for their alternative energy use. We have to meet and beat other states' goals here in Michigan if we are going to attract those companies here. That's why I am asking the Legislature to set ambitious alternative energy goals for Michigan - produce 10 percent of our electrical energy from renewable sources by the year 2015 and a full 25 percent by the year 2025. Thank you Sen. Patterson and Representative Accavitti for working to craft the bipartisan legislation that will transform our state.

There is no way to overestimate the importance of setting state renewable energy use goals when it comes to creating jobs.

It is interesting to actually watch the address, because you can see how flat footed the legislature seems when the governor segues from a hockey metaphor to the alternative energy spiel. She might as well be speaking French.

This is, of course, where we the people need to step in. I will be checking out Governor Granholm's proposal and leaning on my legislators to support it.

Four Reasons to Save Energy

Too much is made of whether or not people "believe" in global warming. Many people who "believe" are still overheating over sized homes and driving over sized cars all over hell's half acre. Quick now, because I've got chores to do, are four reasons to cut down on energy consumption:

Climate change. Yup. Cutting down on your energy use is the fastest way to cut your carbon footprint. If you aren't cutting back on energy, you aren't really doing much.

Energy security. Mike Huckabee put it this way:

None of us would write a check to Osama bin Laden, slip it in a Hallmark card and send it off to him. But that's what we're doing every time we pull into a gas station. We're paying for both sides in the war on terror - our side with our tax dollars, the terrorists' side with our gas dollars.

It makes sense to be mindful of where our money is going. It makes sense to make our country more energy independent.

To save money. You can't spend the same money twice. You can't spend the same tax dollars twice, either, so we should be demanding energy efficiency in government buildings, as well.

Save some for the kids. Crude oil and natural gas are not just energy sources. They are also the raw materials for plastics and nitrogen fertilizer, and a lot of other stuff I don't know about or that hasn't been invented yet. You might need a new heart valve someday. Wouldn't it be ironic if the doctor told you, "Sorry. We used that oil back in '08 to fuel a few Hummers....."

Recession!

The nation has suddenly discovered that we are in a recession. In Michigan, this is no surprise. We have been in hard times for a few years already. I remember two Halloweens ago, trick or treating with one of Anna's classmates, a family that was trying to relocate from downstate. The friend's dad told me that in their subdivision downstate (Brighton, I think) half of the homes were for sale and a third were in foreclosure.

That was some time ago, but Michigan suffered quietly until our presidential primary a few weeks ago. Having all of the candidates show up and try to speechify about our "one state recession" was odd, sort of like when the doctor tells you you're going to be fine but your friends are acting like you're in your final days. Mitt Romney made me laugh, vowing to bring back every single one of Michigan's lost jobs, as if the jobs were lost sheep and Mitt was a sheepdog.

I think of this recession like labor pains. If houses aren't selling, well, no wonder! You can't build bigger and bigger houses farther and farther from civilization without buyers eventually deciding the all that commuting and home heating is more than they can afford. You can't expect to sell bigger and bigger trucks and SUVs to that same commuting population without eventually seeing that market collapse when oil prices get squirelly or when global warming becomes too hard to ignore. You can't outsource all manufacturing to cheaper labor markets without eventually causing consumers to doubt the quality of the goods that you're trying to sell.

When a person starts to think that they're travelling down the wrong path, the natural instict is to stop and think. That's where I see our nation right now, stopping and thinking about taking a new path.

Congress and the president are anxious to nip this recession stuff quickly, and they have been quite speedy in deciding that a tax rebate is just the thing. I don't think they've stopped and thought at all. I sent this message to my congresspeople today:

The talk radio today was all about the looming recession and the federal government's response to it -- another tax rebate. There seems to be general agreement that the recession was triggered by high oil prices. I wonder, then, why the stimulus package is not targeting energy conservation?

Instead of a "spend it how you want it" tax rebate, why not give cheap loans so that folks can install solar hot water heaters, put up home wind generators, update to more efficient furnaces, install effificient windows and insulation, trade in their gas guzzlers, renovate properties along public transit routes (start with the ones in foreclosure) relocate their businesses out of the suburbs and back to the cities, along public transportation routes?

We have contractors and skilled laborors sitting idle, ready to do this work. For an even quicker stimulus, we have organizations like Traverse City's Father Fred Foundation in need of funds to help families with home heating bills. Give them money tomorrow and it will be out in the economy next week! Another tax rebate seems like a knee-jerk response, and not a very effective one at that.

I suspect that my message is too late, as the tax rebate plan seems all but a done deal.

How Cold Is The Big Lake?

OK, so it's getting so I do this every year. Last year, on December 26th, and in 2005, on December 13th, I published pictures from NOAA, of the current Lake Michigan surface temps. This winter has been closer to normal, with snow cover since Thanksgiving an ice on the inland lakes for Christmas.

Still, a look at the big lake, our main weather maker, shows that it is warmer each year. This is bad news for lake levels, as a warmer lake loses more water to evaporation. Ideally, we would like to see the big lake freeze over early and keep all of its water for a month or so.

It is easy to look at lake temps and point to global warming, but there is more going on. Zebra mussels have filtered the water to a new clarity, and sunlight is now penetrating Lake Michigan to greater depths than we have ever seen before, changing the physical characteristics of the lake.

We could also consider the sun. We had a sunny day on Christmas, and a sunny dawn today. We have been treated to more of our usual share of sunny days this December, although the sun doesn't rise very high this time of year.

We watched the sun set over frozen Lake Leelanau last night as we exchanged presents at my brother's place. The sun descends at an oblique angle, reflecting back and shining onto the clouds long after it has disappeared beneath the snow and ice. I don't know how you could have a photo of that sort of sunset, as it is really a series of scenes, with new and more improbable colors every time you glance up.

How to Start the Conversation

It was over at No Impact Man, where I often contribute my MomVoice to the discussion. They were talking about the following scene:

When my friend Elizabeth drops her son off at school in Connecticut, the moms gather in the courtyard to chat. There is a cool new feature to their SUVs which allows them to lock the doors while leaving the engine on. They stand around, a bunch of them, having a nice chat, while their motors idle in the parking lot, keeping air conditioners going in cars that have no one in them and are going nowhere.

I volunteered that I am not the sort of person who could observe such a scene without commenting on it. Furthermore, I would welcome the chance to make that sort of comment at school, in front of my kids, because:

when the conversation takes place at school, I'm giving my kids a "responsible adult" role model. The other moms may not realize it for a long time, but everybody benefits when there are kids in the group who can say "Wait! This isn't right! Let's do something smarter!"

I was surprised when another poster said that she didn't have the guts to initiate such a conversation, and wondered how it was done.

I thought about this all day yesterday, as I did outdoor chores in the (finally) fall weather. I realized that I have, over the years, developed a technique for initiating these conversations. Here it is:

Sibylle, my script for starting these conversations goes something like:

I used to.....(fill in the offending behavior), but then I realized .....(fill in the new information or better practice.)

like

"I've been drinking out of these one-way plastic bottles for years, but lately I've read about how bad they are for the environment and how the water in the bottle isn't any better. I guess I might as well just drink tap water."

or

I used to let my car idle to keep in comfortable inside, but when I read that the carbon dioxide coming out of my tailpipe is going to warm the earth for the next fifty years, well that puts everything into perspective. I guess I can just crack the windows and let it breathe a little.

You don't have to get anyone to agree with you on the spot, just plant the seed. You don't attack anybody, just give them the information they need to make a better decision. And it is about information! Even veteran environmentalists are having to rethink their ways in the new light of global warming. I recently said this to one of my farmer friends:

I used to think I would end up being cremated when I die to "save space for the living" and all that, but now I realize that this body has already sequestered a certain amount of carbon, and why would I want to put it all back up into the atmosphere? I hope my kids can figure out how to compost me....

I didn't realize it until I read Effect Measure, but today is Blog Action Day for the environment, when bloggers are encouraged to write a post about environmental action. I think that having conversations in everyday life are much more important, and educational, than spewing words out into cyberspace. There is simply no subsitute for speaking up!

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change

We are in Ann Arbor this morning, on a quick trip to visit Shelagh and Jordan, and to have dinner last night with brother Tim and nephew Christopher.

I have recently noticed how many "global warming doubt" websites have been constructed and how much money they are spending on advertising. Hopefully, I will find time to write about the process of manufacturing this doubt, but for today I will invite my readers to explore the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change website. They, along with Al Gore, won the Nobel Peace Prize yesterday.

Carbon Crisis -- An Essay From National Geographic

The people around me seem to be living in two different worlds. Most folks seem to recognize that the world is getting warmer, and that something needs to be done. I have seen the average size cars in the parking lot shrink. I am seeing people considering relocating to be closer to work, or looking for jobs closer to home. Nobody brags about their new snowmobiles anymore. I also have small, concerned conversations with people who are worried about the future but unable to figure out the best way to prepare for change or to shoulder their responsibilty.

The essay in the new National Geographic, Carbon Crisis by Bill McKibben, was welcome. When a major source of information about our planet outlines the crisis at our door, it's hard for anyone to write it off as a "political gambit".

Here's how it works. Before the industrial revolution, the Earth's atmosphere contained about 280 parts per million of carbon dioxide. That was a good amount–"good" defined as "what we were used to." Since the molecular structure of carbon dioxide traps heat near the planet's surface that would otherwise radiate back out to space, civilization grew up in a world whose thermostat was set by that number. It equated to a global average temperature of about 57 degrees Fahrenheit (about 14 degrees Celsius), which in turn equated to all the places we built our cities, all the crops we learned to grow and eat, all the water supplies we learned to depend on, even the passage of the seasons that, at higher latitudes, set our psychological calendars.

Once we started burning coal and gas and oil to power our lives, that 280 number started to rise. When we began measuring in the late 1950s, it had already reached the 315 level. Now it's at 380, and increasing by roughly two parts per million annually. That doesn't sound like very much, but it turns out that the extra heat that CO2 traps, a couple of watts per square meter of the Earth's surface, is enough to warm the planet considerably. We've raised the temperature more than a degree Fahrenheit (0.56 degrees Celsius) already. It's impossible to precisely predict the consequences of any further increase in CO2 in the atmosphere. But the warming we've seen so far has started almost everything frozen on Earth to melting; it has changed seasons and rainfall patterns; it's set the sea to rising.

McKibben also does a good job of summarizing the work we need to tackle to fight climate change:

The first question–is it even possible?–is usually addressed by fixating on some single new technology (hydrogen! ethanol!) and imagining it will solve our troubles. But the scale of the problem means we'll need many strategies. Three years ago a Princeton team made one of the best assessments of the possibilities. Stephen Pacala and Robert Socolow published a paper in Science detailing 15 stabilization wedges"–changes big enough to really matter, and for which the technology was already available or clearly on the horizon. Most people have heard of some of them: more fuel-efficient cars, better-built homes, wind turbines, biofuels like ethanol. Others are newer and less sure: plans for building coal-fired power plants that can separate carbon from the exhaust so it can be "sequestered" underground.

These approaches have one thing in common: They're more difficult than simply burning fossil fuel. They force us to realize that we've already had our magic fuel and that what comes next will be more expensive and more difficult. The price tag for the global transition will be in the trillions of dollars. Of course, along the way it will create myriad new jobs, and when it's complete, it may be a much more elegant system. (Once you've built the windmill, the wind is free; you don't need to guard it against terrorists or build a massive army to control the countries from which it blows.) And since we're wasting so much energy now, some of the first tasks would be relatively easy. If we replaced every incandescent bulb that burned out in the next decade anyplace in the world with a compact fluorescent, we'd make an impressive start on one of the 15 wedges. But in that same decade we'd need to build 400,000 large wind turbines–clearly possible, but only with real commitment. We'd need to follow the lead of Germany and Japan and seriously subsidize rooftop solar panels; we'd need to get most of the world's farmers plowing their fields less, to build back the carbon their soils have lost. We'd need to do everything all at once.

I'll be copying this article and bringing it to work. I think I'll also send it to my congressional representative, the one who ll thinks that "the debate is how much has man contributed to (climate change), and what solutions should we try."

Global Warming for Poker Players

The Heartland Poker Tour at Leelanau Sands Casino in May 2007. I'm way back there dealing at table N.

Okay, let's review the concept of "pot odds".

For those of you who don't play poker, evaluating the "pot odds" involves weighing the odds of winning a pot against the cost of further participation in the hand. When the cost of further participation, the bet, is larger than the value of the pot times the chance of winning the pot, we say that “the pot odds aren’t there”. If the pot odds aren’t there, then you fold instead of betting. If the pot is big and the bet in front of you is small, you bet a marginal hand, because further participation won’t cost you that much.

There is a chance that the human race in not the cause of global warming. It's not a big chance, maybe like holding a suited Jack and King in your hand. In the pot in the middle of the table is a host of things like big cars, big houses, a new wardrobe every year, cheap imported food....some nice stuff, to be sure. We would like to win that pot. But someone has bet in front of us. To match that bet, to stay in the hand we have to bet our whole bankroll. We have to go all in.

And what is in our bankroll? Our whole earth. The only place we know we can live in. In order to, maybe, save our current lifestyle, we must bet our entire livable Earth, the livable Earth for not only us, but all of our descendants. There's no hitting the ATM machine to withdraw another stake in the game. That's it.

Is it worth it to bet our whole earth on the off chance that global warming is an illusion? As much as we like the things that are in the pot, they aren't worth risking our earth for. A good poker player folds in that position. He walks away from that pot so that he can live to play another hand.

And there will be other hands. We can live with smaller cars. We can devise lifestyles where we drive less and eat food from the neighborhood. We can figure out all sorts of way to avoid burning gas and oil, and to conserve electricity so that the power plants don't burn so much coal. I guessing that our descendants will shake their heads and wonder how we could ever have lived so enslaved by our outsized cars and homes.

A good poker player congratulates himself on a good laydown and goes on to play smart in the next hand, too. The human race can walk way and be the better for it, or we can stay in and play a suicidal hand. The action's on us.