Category: The environment

Atmosphere, biosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere, etc – everything about life and the state of this planet

Environmental ‘extremism’

Sometimes, living up to one’s ideals requires becoming an extremist. That is to say, speaking and acting in a manner very different from what is normal within the population. Not doing so risks being a hypocrite, since you would be telling others to take actions that you are personally unwilling to take. At the same time, the connotation of ‘extremist’ is almost entirely negative. People have a general feeling that there is an acceptable range of thoughts and behaviour and that those on or beyond the edges are dangerous.

Consider the issue of Al Gore’s (non) vegetarianism. He has resisted calls to follow the actions of IPCC chairman Rajendra Pauchauri and renounce meat, as a means of reducing carbon emissions. At the same time, he is calling for people to make large lifestyle changes for the sake of the planet. Not going vegetarian leaves him open to charges of hypocrisy, even from those who oppose his position on what should be done about climate change. At the same time, choosing lifestyle options like vegetarianism risks getting him branded as an ‘environmental extremist’ by the political mainstream. Environmentalists who have been calling for the issue of climate change to be pan-ideological would likely regret seeing him thus marginalized.

There are generally good reasons to feel nervous about thinking or acting far outside the mainstream. In many cases, it suggests that you have made a serious error in your thinking. That being said, it must be acknowledged that there are situations when mainstream thinking is based upon serious errors of information, judgment, or understanding. In these cases, one is presented with the challenging question of whether it is best to be principled yet easy to ignore or more influential and somewhat hypocritical.

Stern on the opportunities in recession

Nicholas Stern – most notably the author of an eponymous report on the economics of climate change for the British government – has a piece in The Guardian arguing that the financial turmoil ongoing around the world provides an opportunity to refocus investment on low-carbon options:

The International Energy Agency estimates that world energy infrastructure investments are likely to average about $1 trillion a year over the next 20 years. If the majority of this is low-carbon, and some of it is brought forward, it will be an outstanding source of investment demand. So too will be the investments for energy efficiency, many of which can be labour-intensive and are available immediately.

It makes sense to highlight how the current pause in headlong, high-carbon growth can help us to reorient the global economy. Stabilizing climate requires a constant commitment to reducing emissions: not one that wavers when growth seems to strong to resist or too weak to threaten.

1958 climate change video

Boing Boing came up with quite a find today: a video from 1958 that is both amusing and full of relatively accurate information about climate change. Entitled “The Unchained Goddess,” it was produced as an episode of the Bell Telephone Hour.

As I have described before, the idea that climate change only entered the realm of scientific knowledge within the last few years is quite mistaken. Notice also how the announcer in the video is concerned about emissions of “six billion tonnes per year of carbon dioxide.” The figure today is closer to forty billion.

The calm before the storm

Some research recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States examined the behaviour of the climate in the period immediately before eight abrupt shifts. In all cases, there was a reduction in the level of climatic fluctuation immediately before the tipping point was reached. The authors argue that “the mechanism causing slowing down is fundamentally inherent to tipping points” and could thus be used to predict when such a shift is imminent.

While interesting, this probably isn’t enormously useful. If we want to mitigate to avoid abrupt shifts, the emissions cuts will need to occur long before the point when a critical threshold is being approached. A warning might provide an opportunity for more targeted adaptation, however, which might in turn reduce the amount of suffering that occurs as a result of crossing any particular climatic threshold. Certainly, learning more about the causes and consequences of abrupt climatic shifts ought to be a priority for the world’s scientific community.

The GAO on carbon capture and storage

The American Government Accountability Office has released a report (PDF) on carbon capture and storage (CCS). Some key points:

  • To make a significant contribution to fighting climate change, the International Energy Agency estimates that 6,000 CCS facilities would be required, each storing one million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year.
  • Integrating CCS into existing coal plants is very expensive and difficult.
  • It is easier with integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) plants, but they are very expensive before you even take CCS into account.
  • Commercial scale IGCC plants (not necessarily with CCS) can’t be expected before 2020 – 5 years after global CO2 emissions need to peak.
  • Coal plants with CCS will produce 35% – 77% less electricity than those without.
  • There are questions about the long-term viability of storing carbon underground.
  • Leaks could contaminate water and suffocate people.
  • CCS will only be deployed if companies are forced to use it.

In short, people who are counting on CCS to make a big contribution to fighting climate change have a lot to prove, and cannot be reasonably permitted to assume the near-term emergence of the technology as a viable, low-cost option. Until CCS is shown to be safe and feasible on a commercial scale, we simply cannot allow new coal power plants in countries that are serious about dealing with climate change.

I found out about it via Gristmill.

MEC to sell bikes

It seems that Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC) is getting into the business of making and selling bikes. This seems like good news for three major reasons:

  1. MEC is distinguished by having an excellent and knowledgeable staff concerned with finding the best option for you, rather than earning a commission or even maximizing the profits of the store.
  2. MEC has a history of developing their own products, which are generally of good quality and excellent value. They aren’t as good as top-of-the-line equipment from certain other manufacturers, but they are often nearly as good and half the price.
  3. MEC seems to take ethical and environmental issues into consideration very seriously.

In short, I look forward to seeing what they produce (not that I need a bike right now. I am still delighted with my Trek 7.3 hybrid).

Is runaway climate change possible?

One aspect about the possibility of runaway climate change needs to be clarified. The basic mechanism through which it could take place is akin to a feedback loop in a sound system: a small initial warming gets amplified through a feedback, producing more warming in a manner that itself generates even more warming. For such a loop to occur, the feedback effect needs to be quite strong.

Stefan–Boltzmann’s law expresses this mathematically. For an intuitive appreciation, consider the difference between bank lending and a nuclear chain reaction. In an idealized case, a bank would draw from the savings of customers to make a loan. The recipient of that loan might then put part of it in the bank, and the bank may then make additional loans on the basis of that. The total lending of the bank becomes larger than the original loan, but to a non-infinite extent. By contrast, each time an atom of uranium splits in a runaway chain reaction, it releases neutrons that cause more than one other atom to split as well. The result is a reaction occurring at an ever-increasing rate.

It is quite possible that genuine runaway climate change is not possible on Earth – that the existing feedbacks are of the bank lending rather than the nuclear blast variety. That being said, the possibility of warming itself producing further warming remains extremely worrisome. It wouldn’t require ever-escalating temperatures for climate change to be globally devastating. Quite probably, any warming of more than 5˚C would deserve the adjective. The most credible climatic models project approximately that level of warming by 2100, if emissions continue to increase at the present rate.

Mycelium Running

Paul Stamets’ Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World is an informative text, written by a true believer. While it contains a lot of practical information, the author’s unbridled enthusiasm sometimes makes you doubt how valid the more fantastic claims are. That being said, it certainly provides some concrete and believable examples of situations where the strategic use of fungi can have beneficial health and environmental effects.

After providing some basic information about the biology of fungi, Stamets covers four different kinds of ‘mycorestoration.’ He shows how patches of mycelium (the tangled, stringy mass that makes up the bulk of fungi) can be used to filter water flowing through – an application that might have particular value downslope from farm animals. The section on mycoforestry shows how mushrooms can accelerate the breakdown of debris from logging, allowing nutrients to return to the soil. It also addresses the ways in which mycorrhizal fungi on the roots of plants can enhance their growth and health. In a section on mycoremediation, Stamets highlights the ability of different fungi to digest or absorb toxic materials ranging from crude oil to nerve gas to radioactive strontium. Finally, a section on mycopesticides describes ways in which insect-attacking fungi can be used to prevent and cure insect infestations.

In addition to the sections outlining the potential of fungi in general, the book includes a lot of practical information about different types of mushrooms, their uses, and how to grow them. It covers different ways of going from spores to a mushroom patch, at scales ranging from a small garden installation to the very large scale. The last hundred pages is a species-by-species catalogue of different mushrooms: how they look, how to grow them, nutritional information, etc. The assertions about mushrooms having intelligence (partly on the basis of mycelium looking like neurons in a brain), I definitely have my doubts about. The step-by-step instructions on producing mushroom patches, I have no doubt could be invaluable to someone wishing to put fungal theory into practice.

Fungi are probably the class of organisms least well understood by most people, and it is rewarding to gain a deeper understanding of the roles they play in ecosystems. More information can be found on Stamets’ website, which also sells various types of mushroom kit and spawn.

Fine words, more dubious actions

Admirably, the British government has chosen to accept a tougher target for emissions reductions by 2050: pledging to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050. They are right to stress how commitment to climate change mitigation cannot falter in difficult economic times.

Unfortunately, two major contradictions continue to exist in British policy: a continued intention to add extra runways to its busy airports, and the proposal to add two new 800 MW supercritical coal-fired power units to the Kingsnorth Power Station. We have reached the point where we must simply refuse to allow coal power plants that do not capture and store their emissions to be built in developed countries.

[Update: 15 January 2009] The British government has announced that it is going forward with a third runway for Heathrow. Hopefully, they will be stopped by popular protest.

The biomass of humans

Sightline Daily has some interesting numbers up on the relative biomass of human beings, domesticated animals, and wild animals. Apparently, just humans have eight times as much mass as all the wild vertebrates on land. Our mass approximately equals that of all the fish and whales in the ocean. Things are even more dramatic when you factor in domesticated animals. They contain 100 megatonnes of carbon – 20 times as much as there is in all the wild vertebrates on land.

The figures certainly make you think about ecological footprints in a more direct way. They also say something about energy. It seems fair to say that one major factor affecting the total biomass of wild animals is the amount of energy they are able to access. To what extent does our inflated biomass result from unsustainable energy use? Will we be able to maintain it when we can no longer count on ever-increasing production of fossil fuels?