Category: The environment

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

Efficient social housing

Here is a nice idea, social housing developments designed with an eye turned towards energy efficiency:

The boiler room houses a microturbine system, which generates energy for electricity and heat. It reuses heat that would otherwise be lost to the atmosphere, reducing carbon emissions while also cutting costs…

Enterprise [Community Partners] believes “green” and “affordable” are one and the same. It has created a national framework for healthy, efficient, environmentally clever and affordable homes which it calls the Green Communities Criteria. These criteria include water conservation, energy efficiency and the use of environmentally-friendly building materials. The criteria are aligned with LEED, a green rating system. Meeting the criteria increases housing construction costs by 2%, which is rapidly paid back by lower running costs. Even the positioning of a window to optimise daylight can help save energy.

To me, this seems like another example of the market ordinarily caring too much about up-front costs, and not enough about total cost of ownership.

If the ordinary building code was altered so as to make new buildings significantly more efficient, at an increased cost of about 2%, it seems likely that both the residents and the planet would benefit in the long run.

Back up genes from endangered species

Out in Svalbard there is a seed bank, buried in the permafrost. The idea is that it will serve as a refuge for plant species that may vanish elsewhere, perhaps because industrial monocrops (fields where only a single species is intentionally cultivated by industrial means) continue to expand as the key element of modern agriculture.

Perhaps there should be a scientific and conservational project to collect just the genes of some of the great many species our species is putting into peril: everything from primates to mycorrhizal fungi to marine bacteria. The data could be stored, and maybe put to use at some distant point where humanity at large decides that it is better to carefully revive species than to indifferently exterminate them.

For many creatures, the genes alone won’t really be enough, regardless of how good at cloning we become. An elephant or a chimp built up alone from cells would never really become and elephant or chimp as they exist today. Whether those alive now are socialized in a natural or an artificial environment, they will have had some context-sensitive socialization, which subsequently affected their mental life. It is plausible to say that elephants or chimps raised among their peers, living in the way they did thousands of years ago, will develop mentally in a manner that is profoundly different from elephants or chimps in captivity today, much less solitary cloned beings in the future. Those beings will be weird social misfit representatives of those species.

Still, it is better to have misfits than nothing at all. If there is anything human beings should really devote themselves to backing up with a cautious eye turned towards an uncertain future, it seems far more likely to be the genes of species our descendants may not be fortunate enough to know than the Hollywood movies that probably account for a significant proportion of all the world’s hard drives.

CRU exonerated again

As was the case with an earlier review by British Members of Parliament, the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia has been cleared of wrongdoing for a second time. An independent panel chaired by Lord Oxburgh found no evidence of scientific malpractice, though it did encourage the CRU to work more with statisticians in the future.

The full report is here: Report of the International Panel set up by the University of East Anglia to examine the research of the Climatic Research Unit.

Once again, the message seems to be that whatever flaws existed within the CRU do not undermine it fundamentally as an institution, and certainly do not call climate science overall into question. Hopefully, that result will percolate through the media. In the end, I fear, these reviews will get a lot less public attention than the earliest breathless claims of climate change deniers that these emails somehow proved climate change to be a hoax or a fraud.

Krugman on climate economics

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman has written an excellent introductory article on climate and environmental economics, for The New York Times: Building a Green Economy. The piece is a combination of a non-technical introduction and a kind of literature review. His basic thesis is:

In fact, once you filter out the noise generated by special-interest groups, you discover that there is widespread agreement among environmental economists that a market-based program to deal with the threat of climate change — one that limits carbon emissions by putting a price on them — can achieve large results at modest, though not trivial, cost. There is, however, much less agreement on how fast we should move, whether major conservation efforts should start almost immediately or be gradually increased over the course of many decades.

I agree that the latter disagreements exist, and I agree with Krugman that what we know about the climate system justifies aggressive action to reduce and eventually eliminate greenhouse gas emissions. In particular, the non-trivial danger of catastrophic outcomes is a strong justification for precautionary action.

The article includes a concise explanation of Pigovian taxes, of which carbon taxes are a sub-category:

What Pigou enunciated was a principle: economic activities that impose unrequited costs on other people should not always be banned, but they should be discouraged. And the right way to curb an activity, in most cases, is to put a price on it. So Pigou proposed that people who generate negative externalities should have to pay a fee reflecting the costs they impose on others — what has come to be known as a Pigovian tax. The simplest version of a Pigovian tax is an effluent fee: anyone who dumps pollutants into a river, or emits them into the air, must pay a sum proportional to the amount dumped.

Note that as discussed here before, such taxes may be technical mechanisms, but they do not eliminate the need to make ethical choices. Just because a company has been burning coal for decades doesn’t mean it has the right to continue doing so, particularly as new information on why its use is harmful comes to light. By the same token, it is not an ethically neutral choice to say that people who have enjoyed a clean river have the right for it to remain unpolluted. There are many bases on which claims can be made: historical precedent, need, prior agreements, overall welfare, etc. Economics alone cannot provide a solution.

The article also covers cap-and-trade systems, and the ways in which they are similar to and different from carbon taxes; the importance of whether permits are auctioned or not; how even strong mitigation policies would only cost 1-3% of the global domestic product; the importance of major emerging economies taking action; carbon tariffs as a way of encouraging that; the sustantial costs of inaction; the signicance of catatrophic risks (“it’s the nonnegligible probability of utter disaster that should dominate our policy analysis”); a non-mathematical discussion of discount rates; and the status and prospects of climate legislation in the United States.

In short, the article touches on a great many topics that have been discussed here previously, and generally reaches rather similar conclusions to mine and those of most of this site’s commentors. One slightly annoying thing about the piece is that is discusses temperatures using the idiotic Fahrenheit scale, but I suppose that is to be expected when writing for an American audience. Another strange thing about the article is how Krugman fails to mention any of the co-benefits that accompany moving beyond fossil fuels: from reduced air and water pollution to lessened geopolitical dependency.

One of the best things about the piece is how is openly recognizes the seriousness of the problem we are addressing:

We’re not talking about a few more hot days in the summer and a bit less snow in the winter; we’re talking about massively disruptive events, like the transformation of the Southwestern United States into a permanent dust bowl over the next few decades.

Too many recent journalistic accounts and government announcements have affirmed the strength of climate science, without elaborating on what that means, and the type and scale of actions that compels.

The piece is probably worth reading for anybody who doesn’t feel like they have a basic understanding of environmental economics, and their relation to climate policy.

Proposed pumped hydroelectric storage in Australia

Over at BraveNewClimate, there are some plans and cost estimates for a large (9 gigawatt) pumped hydroelectric storage facility in Australia. Two reservoirs separated by 875m of elevation would be joined with a 53km pipe. The total estimated cost is $6.6 billion, or about $744 per kilowatt of storage. That is a pretty expensive proposition, given energy prices today. That being said, such storage facilities are likely to be essential for increasing the share of total energy usage that comes from renewables, across the medium-to-long term. Right now, most Australian electricity is generated by burning coal.

I wrote previously about a similar facility in Wales.

Climate Change Accountability Act vote

This Wednesday, Bill C-311 (Climate Change Accountability Act) will be debated at Report Stage. This NDP-sponsored bill includes targets of a 25% reduction in emissions below 1990 levels by 2020, and 80% below by 2050. It also obliges the government to produce an emissions target plan for 2015, 2020, 2025, 2030, 2035, 2040 and 2045.

I don’t know that the bill’s prospects for passing are, but it seems likely to have little effect in any case. Parliament previously passed the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, in the face of government opposition. The government refused to alter its climate change mitigation plans in response, and the Supreme Court Federal Court of Appeal ruled that the law was ‘not justiciable’ and therefore not for the courts to enforce.

The only importance this bill seems likely to have is a mild and symbolic one. If it passes, it will show continued dissatisfaction on the part of opposition parties about the government’s climate plan. If it fails, it risks showing the opposition parties divided on the issue, or unwilling to make it a priority.

[Update: 13 April 2010] This post originally made reference to the Supreme Court of Canada, whereas it should have made reference to the Federal Court.

[Update: 15 April 2010] The bill passed the Report Stage and will go to Third Reading, probably via committee. The motion to send it to Third Reading passed by 155 to 137.

Some good climate news from Ontario

The Ontario government has just announced $8-billion in renewable energy projects, to be undertaken by dozens of companies with the aim of increasing renewable capacity by 2,500 megawatts.

Investing in the energy systems of the future just makes sense. Ontario could improve on this further by accelerating their planned coal phase-out from 2014 to this year.

The British House of Commons on the East Anglia climate emails

Following up on claims of scientific impropriety at the University of East Anglia, the Science and Technology Committee of Britain’s House of Commons produced a report on the leaked emails. The report includes consideration of datasets, freedom of information issues, and independent inquiries. The report’s three conclusions clearly express how the content of these emails does not undermine climate science, or does it suggest that action should not be taken on climate change. I will quote them verbatim and in full, to avoid any appearance of selective editing:

  1. “The focus on Professor Jones and [Climate Research Unit] CRU has been largely misplaced. On the accusations relating to Professor Jones’s refusal to share raw data and computer codes, we consider that his actions were in line with common practice in the climate science community. We have suggested that the community consider becoming more transparent by publishing raw data and detailed methodologies. On accusations relating to Freedom of Information, we consider that much of the responsibility should lie with UEA, not CRU.
  2. In addition, insofar as we have been able to consider accusations of dishonesty—for example, Professor Jones’s alleged attempt to “hide the decline”—we consider that there is no case to answer. Within our limited inquiry and the evidence we took, the scientific reputation of Professor Jones and CRU remains intact. We have found no reason in this unfortunate episode to challenge the scientific consensus as expressed by Professor Beddington, that “global warming is happening [and] that it is induced by human activity”. It was not our purpose to examine, nor did we seek evidence on, the science produced by CRU. It will be for the Scientific Appraisal Panel to look in detail into all the evidence to determine whether or not the consensus view remains valid.
  3. A great responsibility rests on the shoulders of climate science: to provide the planet’s decision makers with the knowledge they need to secure our future. The challenge that this poses is extensive and some of these decisions risk our standard of living. When the prices to pay are so large, the knowledge on which these kinds of decisions are taken had better be right. The science must be irreproachable.”

As they say, their purpose was not primarily to study the science produced by the CRU. Other examinations of that are ongoing. Still, it seems clear from this that claims made by climate change delayers that these emails revealed a massive conspiracy seem to be clearly contradicted by these findings.

Evan Harris, one member of the committee, successfully moved an amendment to the report expressing that: “the scientific reputation of Professor Jones and CRU remains intact.”

There are many uncertainties that remain about the nature and future of the climate system, and it is essential to both scientific and political processes that the scientific investigation of those things continue to take place in a rigorous, robust, and transparent way. At the same time, we mustn’t allow climate deniers to use any little ambiguity or issue that arises to suggest that the whole edifice of climate science has been undermined. We are rather too far along in the research now for such claims to be credible.

Can democracies solve climate change?

James Lovelock, of Gaia Hypothesis fame, thinks we are too stupid to deal with climate change. He has also argued that democratic systems of government may be at fault:

But it can’t happen in a modern democracy. This is one of the problems. What’s the alternative to democracy? There isn’t one. But even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.

This touches on issues that have been discussed here frequently before, like just how radical a change we need in our political and economic systems. Still, it seems worth discussing.

Is there any chance whatsoever that the suspension of democracy could help deal with climate change? Or would such suspension simply perpetuate inaction, or make things even worse? Certainly, the more concerned any government is about remaining in power, the less seriously they generally take issues of long-term importance.

People are also discussing this on MetaFilter.

Food, energy, and fossil fuels

Yesterday night, I had an interesting conversation about energy, fossil fuels, agriculture, and human population. The key fact is that global agriculture is now deeply dependent on fossil fuels. They are needed for everything from running industrial farming equipment to producing fertilizer to operating the vast logistical networks through which food is processed and distributed. The key question is, what will the ramifications be when we inevitably transition from a global energy system based on fossil fuels to one based on renewable sources?

The transition is indeed inevitable, though it could happen in either of two ways. Either we can voluntarily cut back on using fossil fuels due to well-founded concerns about climate change – and awareness of the opportunities that exist in renewable energy – or we will draw down reserves to the point where it takes more energy to extract one calorie worth of fossil fuel than the fuel contains.

So, what might the post-fossil-fuel world look like? To get one idea, we can consider the world as it existed before the Industrial Revolution brought about large-scale fossil fuel use. Back in 1500, there were about half a billion people alive on Earth. The energy they relied upon was overwhelmingly from renewable sources, such as the embedded solar energy in plants. It seems plausible that returning to that kind of an energy system would return the planet’s capability of sustaining human beings to about the level that existed then: a bit higher, perhaps, because people now live in more places, and a bit lower, perhaps, because of the damage we have caused to the planet in various ways.

For an alternative, we need to consider an enhanced renewable-backed future that includes clever approaches to harnessing renewable sources of energy: solar, wind, wave, geothermal, etc. It seems to me that if we are going to have a world that does not use fossil fuels and which sustains something like as many billions as are alive now (to say nothing of in 2050 or later), such technologies are going to need to be deployed on massive scale and the world’s agricultural systems will need to be adapted to rely on them.

Fossil fuels have been an enormous energy boon for humanity. Quite possibly, they have allowed us to far overshoot where we would otherwise have been, in terms of energy use and population. Quite possibly, both of those will need to fall substantially in a post-fossil-fuel world. If there is any chance of that not taking place, it will depend on the massive deployment of the kind of advanced renewables that are already technologically feasible. That deployment will take dedication, foresight, financing, and energy. Indeed, there is surely no better use for whatever proportion of the world’s remaining fossil fuels we choose to burn than in making the solar and wind farms that will need to form most of the future energy basis for all human civilization.