The outdoors – Page 23 – a sibilant intake of breath

Tomorrow Today report

A group of Canadian environmental NGOs has put out a 28 page list of suggested areas of action and recommendations for Canadian policy. Tomorrow Today (PDF) is divided into sections on energy, wild species and places, oceans, water, food and agriculture, human health, and economic signals. The report reflects the work and positions of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, David Suzuki Foundation, Ecojustice, Environmental Defence, Equiterre, Greenpeace Canada, Nature Canada, the Pembina Institute, Pollution Probe, Sierra Club Canada, and WWF Canada.

Some of the more interesting recommendations include:

Carbon prices of “$30/tonne CO2e in 2009 and increasing to $50/tonne by 2015, and to $75 a tonne by 2020,” with revenus from taxes or auctions to be “directed mainly towards investments in further actions to reduce GHG emissions.” (i.e. not revenue neutral like the new B.C. carbon tax)
Reduce total GHG emissions to 25% below 1990 levels by 2020, and 80% below by 2050.
“A Nuclear Accountability Plan that includes legislation requiring full-cost accounting of nuclear energy; fully shifts the liability and cost of insurance for nuclear power and long-term waste disposal facilities onto electricity rates; moves oversight of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission from Natural Resources Canada (where the department is in a conflict of interest overseeing sales and safety of reactors) to Environment Canada; and eliminates all direct and indirect taxpayer subsidies to nuclear energy.”
“In 2008, announce a federal initiative to reconnect children with nature by providing outdoor natural experiences for all children in grades 4 to 6.”
“Immediately prohibit bottom trawling and other harmful forms of fishing in sensitive areas, prohibit expansion of bottom trawling into previously untrawled areas, and restrict its use to areas that have already been heavily fished for decades.”
“By 2010, implement mandatory labelling policies that include comprehensive nutritional information, country of origin, fair-trade, organic standards and genetic modification content. And amend Canada’s Food Guide to provide information about the climate impacts of food choices.”
“By 2012, implement a comprehensive program to encourage organic agriculture, the production and consumption of locally produced foods, and to educate Canadians on the health advantages of low-meat diets.”
“Immediately implement the precautionary principle by regulating toxic chemicals in the federal Chemicals Management Plan. In particular, implement bans or phaseouts for all non-essential uses of substances known to be harmful where safe alternatives exist and maintain such restrictions until credible evidence is presented that the chemical can be safely used or released.”
Reducing existing subsidies for the mining and oil-and-gas industries and committing to a ban on any new subsidies or financial incentives for mining or oil-and-gas projects, such as for the Mackenzie Gas Project.

Clearly, some of the suggestions are more feasible and realistic than others. It is interesting to see what priorities and approaches NGOs agree on when they collaborate.

Given how slick the report overall is, the PDF is of rather poor quality. It has a bunch of layout calibration marks all over it, and selecting text doesn’t work properly because of large, irregularly shaped invisible elements.

Helmets and driver psychology

Ian Walker, a researcher at the University of Bath, has uncovered an unfortunate tendency in human psychology. Drivers are more likely to hit cyclists who are wearing helmets. The hypothesis is that they compensate for the sight of a bare head by giving a wider berth when passing. On average, they gave a cyclist with a helmet 8.5cm (3.5″) less space. This was confirmed observationally by Walker himself, who used a sensor to evaluate 2,500 such incidents in Salisbury and Bristol. Motorists were most cautious around him when we wore a female wig and no helmet. Wearing the wig earned another 14cm (5.5″) of clearance, on average.

The study also found that larger vehicles are more likely to cut it close: “The average car passed 1.33 metres (4.4 feet) away from the bicycle, whereas the average truck got 19 centimetres (7.5 inches) closer and the average bus 23 centimetres (9 inches) closer.” That’s especially discouraging, given how the relative masses of a cyclist and a bus affect the dynamics of a possible colission.

A more comprehensive examination of the results (PDF) is available online.

The situation demonstrates the kind of game theory situation so common in safety and security. If you fall by the grace of your own actions, you are better off wearing a helmet. If a car actually does hit you, having a helmet is probably also a good idea. The degree of trade-off between reducing the probability of occurrence and mitigating the probable consequences is rarely easy to set effectively.

The take home lesson: there is a bit more reason to be wary of helmets, but cross-dressing could save your life.

Project BudBurst

Project BudBurst is an interesting initiative aiming to collect data on plant behaviour using scores of volunteers. The ‘citizen scientists’ are to record phenomena such as the “first bud burst, first leafing, first flower, and seed or fruit dispersal of a diversity of tree and flower species, including weeds and ornamentals.” All in all, the project is meant to provide useful data on climate change and the effect it is having on plant life.

To have much value, such a project would need to be maintained for many years. That’s the only way year-to-year random aberrations in weather can be isolated from genuine climatic trends. That said, it could be a valuable source of information on how plants are responding to changes in the global environment. Other studies have already shown that the ranges inhabited by plants and animals are shifting in response to changes in temperature and precipitation. What is most interesting is what happens when those gradual changes encounter an obstacle: when creatures moving upslope towards colder air find themselves at the top of the mountain, or when plants flowering earlier miss the time when the insects pollinating them are active.

At present, the project only covers the continental United States. It aims to track 30 native trees/shrubs, 24 native wildflowers, 3 common exotic weeds, 2 common exotic ornamentals, and all of the U.S.A. National Phenology Network calibration species. The Woodland Trust does similar work in the United Kingdom.

Ethics among the doomed

There have been a number of arguments here before about how excess can be justified: specifically, how emitting more greenhouse gasses than is sustainable per-capita based on the present human population can be morally justified. A new logical possibility occurred to me today: it is possible that we are already doomed. By that, I mean that pretty much all aspects of life that we consider to be deeply meaningful or important are already destined to be obliterated as a result of past action or inevitable future actions. For instance, the amount of climate change already locked into the climate system as the result of lags and positive feedbacks may be sufficient to make human civilization untenable.

If this is true, it changes the dynamic somewhat. The standard view of climate change is that we are all on a big ship in the middle of the sea, completely isolated from any help, and a serious hull breach has occurred. If most of us work together selflessly, we can plug it and save the ship. There is, however, the logical possibility that the leak is so bad that even the complete commitment of everyone aboard will not stop the rising water, and will not save a single one among us.

If we have crossed that threshold of inevitability, we are released of our obligations to prevent the sinking of the ship. Of course, the extent to which the sinking was preventable or not can only be known after the fact. Either we find ourselves in the position of being saved, on the basis of whatever efforts were made, or we find ourselves in oblivion, in spite of whatever was done to encourage an alternative outcome.

And the coming wind did roar more loud / And the sails did sigh like sedge

A while ago, I wrote a post on the SkySails system, intended to reduce the fuel use of cargo ships through the use of a massive kite. Today, Neal put a post on MetaFilter on the possible resurgence of sail.

A return to sail does have both ecological and romantic appeal. Forcing the fishing industry to use equipment from the 18th or 19th century (with better safety gear) might even maintain employment without utterly ravishing the sea as rapidly as we are doing now. It could spur the re-emergence of a wooden sailing ship industry, and it would probably attract some tourists as well.

97-day West Antarctic expedition

Not content with data from satellites, a group of British researchers made the trek to the remote Pine Island Glacier in order to gauge whether climate change is accelerating its flow into the sea. The team is only the second group of humans to ever visit the area, following a brief visit by American scientists in 1961.

The Pine Island Glacier comprises about 10% of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet which, along with Greenland, represents the largest plausible contributor to sea level rise. The total melting of this one glacier would raise global sea levels by 25cm. The melting of the entire region of West Antarctica where it is located would contribute 1.5m.

Experiments performed included an examination of the ice structure using towed RADAR and the use of small explosions and geophones to identify soft sediments that might be lubricating the flow of the glacier. GPS receivers have been left behind to perform additional precise tracking. Their central conclusion is a significant acceleration of the glacial flow, compared with the 1% flow rate that satellite measurements tracked during the 1990s:

“The measurements from last season seem to show an incredible acceleration, a rate of up to 7%. That is far greater than the accelerations they were getting excited about in the 1990s.”

Since air temperatures in Antarctica have not risen significantly (as predicted by all General Circulation Models), it is plausible that the acceleration is the result of warmer sea currents.

Some component of the melting could be the result of geothermal activity. If so, it would continue to some extent even after global greenhouse gas concentrations were stabilized and their full consequences have been manifest through the climate system. Of course, the lower that concentration, the greater the chance that West Antarctica’s glaciers will be able to endure.

Cycle friendly London

Once again, London is demonstrating leadership in making progressive urban choices in response to climate change. The city is going to spend £500m on making London more cycle friendly: an initiative that will include 6,000 rental bikes, 12 car-free cycle corridors through the city, and an increased number of pedestrian only streets.

The bike rental scheme is modelled after a successful Parisian initiative, which was in turn inspired by successful community bicycle programs in the Netherlands. The bikes can be collected and deposited from special stalls that will be set up every 300m. The rates to be charged in London don’t seem to be available yet, but those in Paris are very reasonable: free for under 30 minutes, one Euro for an hour, and increasing progressively beyond that. The idea is to stimulate their use in making human-powered trips easier, not letting people use a bike for half a day. The Dutch seem to be the world leaders when it comes to public support for cycling, with 40% of Amsterdam traffic consisting of bikes and a 10,000 bike parking garage under construction at the main train station. Copenhagen, Tel Aviv, Barcelona, Brussels, Stockholm, Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich, Helsinki, and Vienna all have community cycling schemes of some sort.

Cities that are blessed with snow and ice-free roads year round (*cough* Vancouver *cough*) might want to think about something similar. You can’t built many kilometres of highway or subway line for £500m, but you can probably do quite a lot to promote a health-positive, community-centric, and virtually emissions-free transportation option.

Atwood bike tool

The other week, I bit the bullet and ordered one of Peter Atwood‘s excellent handmade tools. In anticipation of the summer, I ordered his bike tool. It’s about three inches long and made from Crucible‘s CPM3V cutlery steel, with a bead blasted finish. It includes 4mm and 5mm hex bits and a 15mm axle wrench, as well as a prybar. I have long admired Atwood’s work as quite beautiful but, prior to seeing the bike tool, never saw something well suited enough to something I do to justify the expense.

The appeal of the tool lies largely in the mode of manufacture. Virtually everything I have ever owned has been mass produced: clothes, electronics, furniture, tools, etc. Having something that was individually forged by a human being is fairly rare. All the logic of economics resists a production process wherein a single being completes everything from design through manufacturing to product testing, and yet it is strangely satisfying to possess something that arose from such an effort. It is that knowledge, and the value derived from it, that justifies paying a relatively high price for such an object.

All in all, this is one more reason I can’t wait for the roads to clear, allowing me to bring my bike up from the basement.

Earth Flotilla

The 1997 and 1998 LIFEboat Flotillas were exceptional undertakings that I was privileged to participate in. Organized by Leadership Initiative for Earth, each centred around a week-long sailing experience in the Gulf Islands of British Columbia, intended to help make young people more aware of environmental issues and better connected with those similarly interested.

In March of this year, a smaller but similar expedition is taking place, organized by the World Wildlife Fund, in cooperation with some of the people involved in the original flotillas. Applicants must be residents of British Columbia between 13 and 17. They must be interested in environmental issues and willing to put in the time required.

As someone lucky enough to do something similar in the past, I recommend the opportunity wholeheartedly. If any readers of this blog match the description – or know people who do – application information is online.

[Update: 11 February 2008] I am pleased to report that Tristan’s brother will be participating in the Earth Flotilla, and because his family found out about it from this site, no less.

Cycling in the freezer

Every time I descend into my unheated basement to do laundry, I note the presence of my shiny hybrid bike over in the corner. Partly on the basis of a tumble early in the season, I have generally been of the opinion that winter cycling in Ottawa is simply too treacherous. Even on bright sunny days, cycling through Centretown is a big pain, likely to involve dangerous confrontations with drivers largely unaware of cyclists near them. In the winter, when bike paths go unplowed and unused, such interactions would necessarily be more frequent, as well as more perilous.

That said, there are some who brave the elements and endure as cycle commuters throughout the bitter winter. While I doubt I will ever acquire their level of commitment, I would consider getting studded tyres and other winter gear if it seemed highly likely that I was going to spend more than a few winters in these conditions.