IPCC 4

The 4^th assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was released today, and the results are unsurprising. This is in part because the drafts of the report have been released, so there’s not much new in there. The major points are that the global scientific consensus can now unanimously agree that global warming is “very likely” (read: about 90% certain) caused by humans. And that global warming can be linked to stronger storms, like Katrina. There is also some controversy over sea-level rising, as many scientists say the amount the report predicts for rising sea levels is very low, especially in the face of new developments just within the last year concerning glacial and icecap melting (the cut off for data in the report was December 2005).

Here are a few articles on the report:

The Gazette

NYT

AP

Guardian

Guardian (“skeptics” paying for reports)

The science behind the basic mechanisms (the ‘trunk & branches) of global warming and climate change have been well understood for quite a while now. So, while these reports might be useful in sparking some meaningful policy – they really represent just a detailed analysis “in the leaves” of things we know already. In that way they are a bit of a distraction. A way to delay meaningful action until we “get more evidence.” It’s not the best use of our time, energy, money and intellect, particularly when there are so many profitable, inspiring, and equitable solutions out there. Remember that this is a consensus document among scientists, who are naturally skeptical and cautious – by their very method. Finding consensus amongst the leaves of detail is very difficult, and inevitably results in watered-down, cautious statements. So the fact that this report is so strong in its wording about the threats of global warming, further solidifies what is obvious to so many of us.

Stay going.

State of the Union Preview

Bush is expected to talk about a new greenhouse gas mitigation plan tonight. He’s talked about ending the “oil addiction”, increasing efficiency and shifting to cleaner energy sources in just about every SoU, but with a focus on voluntary action and little follow through in the way of policy. It will be interesting to see what he comes up with tonight. Some things to keep in mind as he talks:

• the US Climate Action Partnership has released a report calling for mandatory regulation on GHG emissions – the group consists of Alcoa, BP America, Caterpillar, Duke Energy, DuPont, FPL Group, General Electric, Lehman Brothers, PG&E, and PNM Resources, along with 4 NGOs -- Environmental Defense, Natural Resources Defense Council, Pew Center, and World Resources Institute. They have said that they are doing this now, in part because they expect softer caps under Bush than they will get under the next administration

· there have been plenty of bills on GHG regulations put forward in Congress of late. PointCarbon North America offers a recap:

In the US, the new senate majority leader Harry Reid introduced a message bill on energy, designed to frame broad goals for upcoming legislation. This “National Energy and Environment Security Act of 2007” calls for mandatory greenhouse gas regulation, and according to Reid’s staff it implies cap-and-trade. With Democrats now holding a one-seat majority in the US senate, his staff predicted that by the end of January “we’ll see at least a dozen bills popping up that deal with carbon emissions, many of them from senior people like committee chairmen.”

Indeed, Senators Lieberman and McCain re-introduced their cap-and-trade proposal last Friday (see page 2), with a new co-sponsor – presidential hopeful Barak Obama. Yesterday former Senator Jeffords’ greenhouse gas cutting bill was reintroduced, and Senator Diane Feinstein’s office will release hers this week. Barbara Boxer, who heads the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, has indicated the climate change hearings she plans to hold will produce several proposals for regulating US emissions as well. Her first hearing on the issue will be held 30 January.

New faces in key positions on the state and regional level may accelerate progress toward carbon trading as well. Massachusetts’ new Governor Deval Patrick plans to bring his state, one of the biggest emitters in the northeastern US, back into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI)

Hopefully these forces coming together, with the back drop of the wind storms in Europe, ice storms in Texas, etc. will spark some meaningful, decisive action. Stay going.

Tesco's carbon rating

Some good news from UK's retail giant Tesco (from the Financial Times):

Tesco will become the first supermarket chain to assign a "carbon rating" to everything it sells in the latest attempt by a retailer to cash in on consumers' concerns about the environment.

The fifth-largest retail chain said on Thursday it would work with Oxford University's environmental change institute to create an index to measure the carbon required to produce, transport and consume every product it sells...

...Labels showing energy content could encourage shoppers to opt for lower carbon goods. This could boost local suppliers to Tesco stores and encourage manufacturers to cut carbon emissions in order to attract shoppers to their brands...

...The retailer said it would spend up to £500m during the next five years in reducing energy use. It has already put £100m into a sustainable technology fund. Its capital expenditure budget is about £3bn a year.

Sustainable consumption has become a hot topic for retailers over the past year as they look to win over the growing legions of shoppers who are expressing concerns about the environment.

This is great news to see the trends going this way, and making it easier for us to make better-informed "votes" at the cash register. Hopefully this will also make the choice between "local or organic" easier - while work towards the time when everything will be both.

Check out the full story: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/133d5be4-a718-11db-83e4-0000779e2340.html

Stay going.

New year’s and Climate Change

I hope everyone had a lovely holiday season. I spent a good portion of it traveling (a terrible habit I’m working to break) and talk from various parts is ever-more focused on the weird weather, and the economic costs. Wind storms in the north west have been responsible for Stanley Park in Vancouver losing around 4,000 trees, and two deaths, and restoration efforts will cost at least $5 million, according to recent estimates, though they won’t know for sure until this summer at the earliest. Province-wide the utility there is already looking at upwards of $40 million in storm damage, vs. the $5 million budgeted.

Also, couple of other interesting headlines from Environmental Finance:

London, 11 January: The World Economic Forum (WEF) has upped its assessment of the risk posed by climate change, estimating that it could cause up to $250 billion of economic losses over the next 10 years.

(Read the full story)

London, 11 January: The European Commission has called on industrialised countries to cut their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 30% by 2020 compared with 1990 levels.

(Read the full story)

All of these represent examples or manifestations of the funnel walls for individuals, businesses, universities and all other organizations. Luckily, solutions-oriented approaches are finally becoming more common, and this is where it gets fun – when we pull together against our common enemy of unsustainability and start developing the creative, innovative solutions that will move us past the carbon economy, provoking us to step back and reconsider what is the real purpose of our endeavors here on Earth, reconnect with our local communities and throughout it all learn together.

One such uplifting recent development is the Arizona State University’s School of Sustainability opening this month and general trends towards sustainability in higher education. My company Greenland Enterprises will be in the mix over the coming months helping out with the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment mentioned in the article. We’re very excited about this, and encourage anyone working in college administration, or know people who are, or if you’re a student, or an alum or a college or university to encourage those institutions to take a stand and make the commitment, and enjoy a leadership role in this exciting challenge.

We’re also very excited to be back in Boston, and look forward to catching up with everyone, and getting involved with exciting sustainability initiatives going on around here. More excited still for the Pat’s game this afternoon and a graceful defeat of San Diego on their home turf. Stay going.

Mending Wall

As I attempt to bore through the culture shock of returning to the US, it’s the news that’s really tripping me up. After a year and a half or so of getting news online only and selectively picking headlines while pressed for time, it’s crazy coming back to the full bombardment of TV, radio and print – all in a language I understand.

I’ve been chuckling, as I’m sure many have, about the recent news about the fence company working on the Mexican border fence hiring illegal workers. It’s a tricky, complex issue for sure, and one I won’t tackle here except to say that I think it’s certainly just a symptom of underlying, systemic problems – which is where we should be focusing our energies, instead of on fence building.

It also go me thinking about the Shell Global Scenarios and how there is always an element of a kind of “walls” scenario – from back in ’92 with “barriers” through to last year’s with “flags” – in which eroding trust (a big issue on the declining wall of the funnel) hampers the emergence of a global community and a global consciousness, as well as global business and global security. As these thoughts swam around I happened upon an old book of Robert Frost poems – North of Boston – normally the kind of old book you pick up, admire the old pages, wonder how they’re still intact, smell the old-book-smell and put down. But today I flipped through and actually read one, which resonated:

Mending Wall

by Robert Frost

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun;

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The work of hunters is another thing:

I have come after them and made repair

Where they have left not one stone on a stone,

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,

To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,

No ones has seen them made or heard them

made,

But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls

We have to use a spell to make them balance:

“Stay where you are until our backs are

turned!”

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of out-door game,

One on a side. It comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall:

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, “Good fences make good neigh-

bours.”

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head:

“Why do they make good neighbours? Isn’t

it

Where there are cows? But here there are no

cows.

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offence.

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,

That wants it down.” I could say “Elves” to

him,

But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather

He said it for himself. I see him there

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness it seems to me,

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father’s saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, “Good fences make good neigh-

bours.”

Stay going...

Thought control

Check out this new video - a remake of Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall

with a twist - "you don't need an education to save the planet" ... in fact today's educational system is designed in such a way that our thinking about problem-solving and how we meet our needs will continue to destroy natural & social systems until we radically alter our way of thinking - so we all certainly need learning to make it happen. In the meantime - do the easy stuff in your homes, or these kids will do it for you...

Stay going.

Biofuels & Sustainable Agriculture

A quick bit of good news from a new study out of the University of Minnesota evaluating a diverse mix of perennial grasses and other flowering plants provide more usable energy per acre than corn grain ethanol or soybean biodiesel.

Now there’s often a lot of confusion generated around biofuels “in the leaves” of details. A strategic, whole-systems perspective tells us that moving from fossil fuels to biofuels helps with SP 1 violations – but for it really move us towards sustainability it must be done in a way that eventually eliminates SP2-4 violations. So if its biofuels are grown using huge amounts of pesticides & fertilizers that doesn’t help us with SP2 (and sets us back with regard to SP1, as its energy intensive to produce those). If they’re grown on huge tracks of previously natural areas, we’re done doing any good with regard to SP3, and if we get them from producers that exploit laborers (exposing them to toxins, underpaying them, etc) we’re not doing any good on SP4.

The good news is it’s fully possible to image creative ways to do this today – and by engaging on the process, we won’t be able to help but discover new innovations to continually do these things better. To keep the process moving, actions along this path should: 1) move us towards sustainability (i.e. not violating the 4 SPs), 2) be flexible platforms for supporting future actions, & 3) provide sufficient ROI to support & continue the process.

This study represents a great example of that – and touches on a couple of key components to sustainable agriculture & permaculture: integrating perennial crops (as the article says the roots sequester carbon, there’s less erosion from annual plowing and not all of the nutrients leave the soil with the harvest) & taking advantage of diversity (which when properly designed increases productivity by creating synergies, and mitigates risk of losses from pests & adverse weather conditions).

Check out this recap of the study with a link to the real deal.

Stay going.