Kyoto2

A quick interesting report from PointCarbon:

KYOTO COUNTRIES DISCUSS GHG REDUCTIONS OF 25-40 PER CENT BY 2020
Countries that have ratified the Kyoto protocol are this evening in Vienna
discussing setting "indicative" targets for rich countries to reduce
greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions 25-40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020


This is out of a preliminary meeting ahead of the next COP (conference of the parties) which is in November. Kyoto is sometimes criticized for not being stringent or meaningful enough, missing the bigger picture that it is merely a first step to set up the system, get on the same page, and get going with a target of ~5% below 1990 emissions by 2012. Now they're finally talking about the next steps, and cranking down the cap. This range seems about right to keep us on track for 80% reductions by 2050. Just having some sense of the numbers after 2012 should give governments and companies a better sense of what's in store, and help make better investment decisions. Once the constraints are set, and uncertainty reduced, the full power of our creativity can be deployed, and we'll be able to achieve much faster and more economic GHG emission reductions - a situation that will be amplified when the US joins and adds its weight, which will in turn prompt China and India to do the same...

Here's to staying positive. On that note, the American College & University Presidents' Climate Commitment is up to 356 signatories, and gearing up for the new school year. Fall is starting to creep into the air in New England, the Sox are still in 1st (despite the travesty that was their series this week against the Yanks - ouch), and it's Labor Day weekend... stay going.

Presidential greenery

I think it's pretty absurd how early the presidential campaign stuff has gotten underway, and because sustainability is apolitical, I don't get into it much here, but Grist has a good series of interviews with candidates getting right into the green issues. They're starting off with the Dems but will be moving on to the Republicans soon.

I got a huge kick out of Mike Gravel's interview - he doesn't pull any punches - and his no-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is approach is refreshing.





Stay informed, stay going...

RMI’s 25th, and Amory Lovins’ Clarity

Natural Capitalism was a highly influential book for me. Throughout high-school I struggled on my own to makes sense of the complexity surrounding our market economy, and why it was failing us. As I discovered solutions-based, proactive means for addressing the social and ecological unsustainability we face, like organic agriculture and green building – better ways of doing things that made economic sense when done properly – I knew there had to be a way to scale them up. When I got my permaculture certification, and engaged in systems thinking in an intentional way for the first time, I was closer to being able to articulate how this could be done – the solutions were there and were so elegant with smart design of the systems we use to meet our needs. I felt like I was on the cusp of figuring something out, when I read Natural Capitalism and discovered that it had already been done – and far from a theoretical fantasy, the whole book is case studies of effective, profitable, solutions-based activities that result from taking a whole-system approach to design (of buildings, cities, water systems, products, etc…)

I reminisce because this year is the 25^th anniversary of the Rocky Mountain Institute and Grist just ran a great article with Amory Lovins. I highly encourage you to read the whole thing:

http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2007/07/26/lovins/index.html?source=weekly

Some highlights:

On the economics of nuclear vs. micropower:

We see this now in the electricity business. A sixth of the world's electricity and a third of the world's new electricity comes from micropower* -- that is, combined heat and power (also called cogeneration) and distributed renewables. Micropower provides anywhere from a sixth to over half of all electricity in most of the industrial countries. This is not a minor activity anymore; it's well over $100 billion a year in assets. And it's essentially all private risk capital.

So in 2005, micropower added 11 times as much capacity and four times as much output as nuclear worldwide, and not a single new nuclear project on the planet is funded by private risk capital. What does this tell you? I think it tells you that nuclear, and indeed other central power stations, have associated costs and financial risks that make them unattractive to private investors. Even when our government approved new subsidies on top of the old ones in August 2005 -- roughly equal to the entire capital costs of the next-gen nuclear plants -- Standard & Poor's reaction in two reports was that it wouldn't materially improve the builders' credit ratings, because the risks private capital markets are concerned about are still there.

On the competiveness of liquid coal:

I think a good way to smoke out corporate socialists in free-marketeers' clothing is to ask whether they agree that all ways to save or produce energy should be allowed to compete fairly at honest prices, regardless of which kind they are, what technology they use, where they are, how big they are, or who owns them. I can tell you who won't be in favor of it: the incumbent monopolists, monopsonists, and oligarchs who don't like competition and new market entrants. But whether they like it or not, competition happens. It's particularly keen on the demand side.

On the relative (in)effectiveness of government:

People will vote with their wallets as well as their ballots, in a way that will affect the political system and even more the private sector, which is quite good at selling what you want and not selling what you don't buy. The interplay between business and civil society is even more important than between business and government, and that is where I want to continue to focus most of my effort. I admire those who try to reform public policy, but I don't spend much time doing that myself. In a tripolar world of business, civil society, and government, why would you want to focus on the least effective of that triad?

On the absurdity of the level of the biofuels “debate”:

You're treating biofuels as generic and I don't think that's appropriate. There are much smarter and much dumber approaches to biofuels, and biofuels do not need to have the problems you refer to.

Stay going…

GoodSearch for StratLeade

A request: if you’ve gotten any value out of this blog, and/or want to support education for strategic sustainable development, please start using GoodSearch for your internet searches and designate Stratleade as the charity you support – about 1 cent will go to Stratleade every time you search using www.goodsearch.com.

Go to www.goodsearch.com and enter “Stratleade” in the second field where it says “Who do you GoodSearch for?” in the field should appear: “Stratleade Sustainability Education (Jamaica Plain, MA)” – and then use this whenever you search the internet. It uses the same technology as Yahoo and gives great results (if you can’t get off Google, at least use this for basic stuff!). Also download the toolbar (it takes 2 seconds) if you use that feature on your browser.

For those of you who haven’t heard, or forget, Stratleade is a not-for-profit that raises money to support programs and activities that deliver education for Strategic Sustainable Development. It is a close partner of the MSLS program at BTH and plans to provide funds to support staff, scholarships, visiting lectures, internships and program activities. See www.stratleade.org for more.

This could raise a lot of money for the program, so please take the second to set Stratleade as your cause, use it whenever you search and spread the word!! Put it on your blogs, encourage family & friends to use it – it’s a great way to help the program without having to reach into your own pockets (although it would be great if you did that too! paypal donations accepted at www.stratleade.org).

Skål, tack så mycket, and stay going.

Manufactured Landscapes

We went to see Manufactured Landscapes this afternoon - a powerful documentary about Edward Burtynksy's photography of industrial landscapes. His work in this area started off with photos of mines, landfills in the like in North America, but most of the work lately has been in China. It is a great illustration of what we all know, but often forget, and can rarely truly grasp: the scale of China's growth, which is being driven in large part by our consumerism.















The film does a great job of communicating one of the key characteristics of they system "global society within the biosphere": interdependence. The film does a nice job of showing this in a such a way that it is not obtuse.

It's often hard to think about China's development, following in our footsteps, and not get depressed. The issue is complex, as clearly this development is also benefiting hundreds of millions of people in certain ways. It is not easy to say "don't develop like we did" - especially when all of the corporations are licking their chops waiting for the Chinese market to mature to the point where they can consume like us. To help understand it all, I find the Threshold Hypothesis to be very useful. The jist of it is as follows:

“For every society there seems to be a period in which economic growth–conventionally understood and measured-brings about an improvement in the quality of life, but only up to a point-the threshold point-beyond which, if there is more economic growth, quality of life may begin to deteriorate.” (Max-Neef, Ecological Economics, 1995).

Clearly, China's going through that first period (though on an unprecedented scale) - and it's quite clear that we are in the second stage, although we are slow in realizing that and adapting accordingly. Still, more and more people are waking up to this reality, stepping back and asking themselves why a few times, with regard to our careers, plans, dreams, life in general. To paraphrase Janine Benyus, more and more we're creating eddies along side the massive river of unsustainable growth, reflecting and looking for ways to create a steady-state, circular, sustainable global economy.

An incredible recent example of this is the Tallberg Forum going on in Sweden right now - that link will bring you to great videos of each day's events - very inspiring. On the China front, an Chinese interviewee from day 2 gives some great hope with a simple statement picking up on JFK vibe: it's time to stop asking what the world can do for China and start asking what China can do for the world. Great question for all of us, especially here in the US, as we come into my favorite holiday of the year, meant to celebrate the principles upon which this great country was based, and from which we unfortunately often drift too far. Stay going.

The film's website: http://www.mercuryfilms.ca/ML_intro.html

Edward Burtynsky's photography: http://www.edwardburtynsky.com

ACUPCC in DC

So, the reflective, thoughtful life of a grad student ends, and the flow of blog posts slows to a trickle…! But the excitement of creating a sustainable society certainly has not. I’ll likely turn to writing more on the Greenland Enterprises site once we get a better blog set-up going, but I’ll continue to post here from time to time.

Aside from staying busy with business development, networking and exploring new project ideas, most of our time has been dedicated to the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment. It’s been going very well, with over 312 presidents so far pledging their institutions to a path towards climate neutrality.

We had a very successful public launch of the initiative in Washington DC a couple of weeks ago at the ACUPCC Leadership Summit. It was incredibly inspiring to hear some of these presidents speak about what they’re doing on their campuses and why, what it means for the future of the US and the world, and how it will benefit their institutions and stakeholders now and in the long-run. We were also treated to some talks by rock-stars in the space, including James Hansen (NASA Goddard Space Institute), Eileen Claussen (Pew Center), John Kerry (MA), Bernie Sanders (VT), Jay Inslee (WA), and Steve Johnson (EPA Administrator).

But in my opinion the presidents stole the show – Michael Crow (Arizona State), Tim White (U of Idaho), Kathy Schatzberg (Cape Cod Community College), David Hales (College of the Atlantic), David Shi (Furman), and many others – are all doing amazing things. A quick Google search will bring up some good info on them if you’re interested – especially Crow and ASU, they are shifting the paradigm in a big way, and as a result are going to be well positioned to meet the coming demands from applicants, employers, funding bodies, etc.

I also got a chance to facilitate a dialogue session amongst the presidents about implementing the commitment, sharing a definition of leadership I heard recently, which says leadership is stepping into that which you have not yet mastered. It’s safe to say that no one has yet mastered a long-term shift to climate neutrality on a large scale, so in that sense, and in many others, making this commitment is a tremendous show of leadership by these presidents and their institutions.

Our fantastic partners at ecoAmerica wrote up a summary for their blog, if you’re interested in more details (they also have some links to the excellent press coverage the event received). And we finally got to meet the rest of the team in person, after months of emails and conference calls - a great group to work with:

All in all, it’s been an interesting to see the reactions to this initiative as we go through this amazing time when the US is waking up to the global warming challenge. The resistance to signing has for the most part come from misunderstanding what the Commitment actually entails, or getting hung up on details (for example, it includes picking 2 short term actions from a list of 7, and people will take issue with one of the options on the list). Also, as with anything new, some believe it cannot be done, but I think they’ll sign on as they see the successes of the others. Another piece that’s often overlooked is the power of collective action – some schools figure they’ll be better off going it alone – but they’re missing a tremendous opportunity to send a powerful message to the rest of society about the need to collaborate for this common cause (they’ll also miss out on some great technical support, the development of a common framework and standards, and opportunities to learn from each other along the way).

Finally, and most importantly, a common reason for resistance is not seeing the larger picture, which is that ACUPCC is not just about reducing GHG emissions from campus operations, but much more about (1) educating our next generation of leaders so they’re prepared to solve this problem, by being able to deal with the complexity and communicate with each other across disciplines and (2) promoting research to develop the solutions we will need – both the physical and social technologies we are lacking. As ASU’s Crow said at the Summit, “The higher ed. community may only have about 3% of the carbon footprint, but we have 100% of the educational footprint.” As I’ve discussed before on this blog, creating a sustainable society will require not a magical new technology or set of laws, or by improving efficiencies or making incremental improvements, but with a change in our thinking, an evolution of consciousness. As Marcel Proust said, “The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” Stay going.

5 things for global warming

Check out this recent piece by NASA Climate scientist James Hansen - it touches on (once again) the gap between what the scientists know, and what the public and policy-makers understand.

This gap lies at the heart of why we need to move away from reductionism, where we study and address everything in isolation in separate disciplines /departments /silos / sectors / drill holes, to a whole-system approach where policy makers and scientists, engineers and biologists, economists and consumers, businessmen and school teachers, can understand eachother because they have a shared, relevant view of the whole-system. This is the first step in taking a strategic appraoch to sustainability.

But I digress, Hansen's article offers 5 things we need to do, now, to address global warming. I think there are more inspiring ways we could go about addressing the challenge - and people are starting to do that, finding synergistic solutions through sustainable urban planning, green building, sustainable product design, permaculture, and the like - but these would certainly help, and are straight forward, necessary actions, regardless if they come about through transformational change of global society or through regulation:

1) Put a moratorium on building any more coal-fired power plants until we have the technology to capture and sequester the CO2
2) Put a price on emissions
3) Establish and enforce energy-efficiency standards (buildings & vehicles)
4) Study and report on ice-sheet stability (not sure how knowing more about the symptom helps us cure the root cause, but it's certainly important research, especially as we are forced to focus on adaptation as well as mitigation)
5) Reform of communication practices (so we can avoid the disasters of reductionism)

The full piece is brief, and available here: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070507/hansen

Stay going.