Good Morning Gloucester

Cape Ann's most popular blog just ran a nice post about the 350.org event happening in Gloucester on Sat. Oct. 24 at 1pm at the Fishermen's Memorial statue.

Check it out and browse around the site a bit, Good Morning Gloucester.... they've got a ton of awesome stuff, including plenty of seagull hilarity.

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The Natural Edge Project - huge emissions cuts, positive economic impact

My partner sent out the list (below) of reports demonstrating how we can achieve huge cuts in GHG emissions while not only avoiding costs, but driving economic prosperity in preparation for a roundtable discussion this afternoon with Michael Smith of The Natural Edge Project, an Australian think-tank that does an excellent job showing the benefits of whole-system thinking and design in pursuing sustainability. I couldn't help by share it:

Studies demonstrating that OECD Nations Can Achieve 60-80 per cent Emission Cuts Whilst Boosting the Economy and Jobs.

Hanemann, W., Farrell, A. et al (2006) Managing Greenhouse Gas Emissions in California. The California Climate Change Center at UC Berkeley at http://calclimate.berkeley.edu/research/ghg/assets/Cover_and_Executive_Summary.pdf

Interlaboratory Working Group (2000) Scenarios for a Clean Energy Future, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, and National Renewable Energy Laboratory, CO. Available at www.nrel.gov/docs/fy01osti/29379.pdf.

Torrie, R., Parfett, R. and Steenhof, P. (2002) Kyoto and Beyond: the low emission path to innovation and efficiency, Report for David Suzuki Foundation and Canadian Climate Action Network, Canada. http://www.davidsuzuki.org/files/Kyoto_72.pdf

Lovins, A., Datta, K., Feiler, T., Rábago, K., Swisher, J., Lehmann, A. and Wicker, K. (2002) Small Is Profitable: The Hidden Economic Benefits of Making Electrical Resources the Right Size, Rocky Mountain Institute, Colorado. www.smallisprofitable.org

Turton, H., Ma, J., Saddler, H. and Hamilton, C. (2002) Long-Term Greenhouse Gas Scenarios: a pilot study of how Australia can achieve deep cuts in emissions, Australia Institute Paper No 48, http://www.tai.org.au/documents/dp_fulltext/DP48.pdf

Mintzer, I., Leonard, J.A. and Schwartz, P. (2003) US Energy Scenarios for the 21st Century, Pew Center on Global Climate Change.

Department of Trade and Industry (2003) Our Energy Future – Creating a Low Carbon Economy, Energy White Paper, UK Department of Trade and Industry, Version 11. http://www.dti.gov.uk/energy/energy-policy/energy-white-paper/page21223.html

Bailie, A., Bernow, S., Castelli, B., O’Connor, P. and Romm, J. (2003) The Path to Carbon Dioxide-Free Power: Switching to Clean Energy in the Utility Sector, Tellus Institute and Center for Energy and Climate Solutions for the World Wildlife Fund, USA. http://www.foe.org.au/climate-justice/learning-resources/solutions-to-climate-chnage/clean-energy/

Jochem, E (eds) (2004) Steps Towards A Sustainable Development: A White Book of R&D for Energy Efficient Technologies. Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI) http://www.isi.fhg.de/e/publikation/pdf/white_book_energy-efficient_technologies.pdf

Saddler, H., Diesendorf, M. and Denniss, R. (2004) A Clean Energy Future for Australia Energy Strategies, WWF, Canberra. http://wwf.org.au/ourwork/climatechange/cleanenergyfuture/

Lovins, A.B., Datta, E.K., Bustnes, O.E., Koomey, J.G. and Glasgow, N.J. (2004) Winning the Oil Endgame: Innovation for Profits, Jobs and Security, Rocky Mountain Institute, Colorado. http://www.oilendgame.com/

National Institute for Environmental Studies (2005) Japan: Low Carbon Society Scenarios toward 2050, National Institute for Environmental Studies. Japan. http://2050.nies.go.jp/

Stern, N. (2006) The Stern Review: The Economics of Climate Change, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Makhijani, A. (2007) Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free: A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy, Nuclear Policy Research Institute and the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research. http://www.ieer.org/carbonfree/

Smith, M. and Hargroves, K. (2007) ‘Analysis of the Costs of Inaction versus the Costs of Action on Climate Change for Australia’, a submission by TNEP to the Garnaut Review, The Natural Edge Project, Australia. www.naturaledgeproject.net/Documents/TNEPSubmission.pdf

Diesendorf, M. (2007) Paths to a Low Carbon Future Reducing Australia’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions by 30 percent by 2020, Sustainability Centre. http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/australia/resources/reports/climate-change/paths-to-a-low-carbon-future.pdf

Hatfield Dodds, S., Jackson, E.K., Adams, P.D. and Gerardi, W. (2007) Leader, follower or free rider? The economic impacts of different Australian emission targets by 2050, The Climate Institute, Sydney, Australia. http://www.climateinstitute.org.au/images/stories/CI058_ER_FullReport_NEW.PDF

IPCC (2007) Climate Change 2007: Mitigation. Contribution of Working Group III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [B. Metz, O.R. Davidson, P.R. Bosch, R. Dave, L.A. Meyer (eds)], Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.

National Institute for Environmental Studies (2007) Japan Scenarios towards a Low Carbon Society – Feasibility study for 70% CO2 emission reduction by 2050 below 1990 level, National Institute for Environmental Studies. Japan. http://2050.nies.go.jp/

Smith, M., Hargroves, K., Stasinopoulos, P., Stephens, R., Desha, C. and Hargroves, S. (2007) Energy Transformed: Sustainable Energy Solutions for Climate Change Mitigation, The Natural Edge Project, Griffith University, and CSIRO, Australia. http://www.naturaledgeproject.net/Sustainable_Energy_Solutions_Portfolio.aspx

Department of Trade and Industry (2007) Meeting the Energy Challenge: A White Paper on Energy, Department of Trade and Industry, UK. http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file39387.pdf

Institute of Public Policy Research, WWF and RSPB (2007) 80 per cent challenge: Delivering a Low Carbon Britain. Institute of Public Policy Research, WWF and RSPB. UK. http://www.ippr.org.uk/pressreleases/?id=2922

Pembina Institute and David Suzuki Foundation (2008) Deep Reductions, Strong Growth: An economic analysis showing that Canada can prosper economically while doing its share to prevent dangerous climate change. Pembina Institute and David Suzuki Foundation. http://www.davidsuzuki.org/latestnews/dsfnews12040801.asp

Von Weizsäcker, E., Hargroves, K., Smith, M., Desha, C. and Stasinopoulos, P. (2009) Factor 5: Transforming the Global Economy through 80% Improvements in Resource Productivity, Earthscan, London. (Pre publication Hardcopy bound copy given to LBNLs)

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C-ROADS less taken...

Speaking of Hopenhagen - you want some hope?? Check out this new TED talk from (fellow Dartmouth alum!) Drew Jones of the Sustainability Institute. This is the kind of way we need to be thinking - acknowledging the danger of potential "Business as Usual" emissions scenarios, and then immediately recognizing that those are not a pre-determined future, and that we must mobilize immediately and in a big way if we're even going to get close to achieving atmospheric concentrations of 350 ppm in a meaningful timescale. Enjoy, (and learn more at the Climate Interactive Blog):

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Hopenhagen

Another grassroots campaign to show the broad support for meaningful action in Copenhagen (we need all we can get!)

Check out the site - pretty inspiring to see the quotes from around the world of what gives people hope in a very cool visual lay out: http://hopenhagen.org/

And sign the petition.

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The End of Poverty

Check out this trailer for what looks to be an excellent new movie, The End of Poverty. In theaters in November, it looks like it will do a good job of getting to the root of the major drivers of global poverty, and how our globalized economic system and our lifestyles exacerbate and increase that poverty.





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Happy Earth Overshoot Day!

Yep, it's Earth Overshoot Day again. Ok, not that happy an occasion, but an important one to help us step back and really let it sink it... just what we are doing here. Just what "unsustainability" means.

Here's the basics from the Global Footprint Network that tracks this stuff:

Unlike governments, nature doesn’t do bailouts. Yet as of today, humanity will have placed more demand on ecological services – from filtering CO2 to producing food, fiber and timber– than nature can provide in this year, according to Global Footprint Network calculations. From now until the end of the year, we will meet our demand for ecological services by depleting resource stocks and accumulating carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

...Because of the global economic slowdown, we will reach Earth Overshoot Day one day later than last year, according to Global Footprint Network projections. By comparison, in the past, Earth Overshoot Day has steadily moved four to six days closer to January 1st each year.

See yesterday's post about the Planetary Boundaries for a little more explanation on what it means to cross these thresholds, the implications of irreversibility, etc.

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Implications of the Anthropocene

We've been slamming the table on this key point for some time in speeches, conversations, etc. - which is that as the magnitude, scope, and scale of human activity are now so large that we are a driving force in earth systems.

A group of 30 scientists just published a new article in Nature that digs into the planetary boundaries that our activities have crossed or threaten to cross... climate change is just one of 9 identified boundaries (they put the threshold for that one at 350 ppm).

Take 10 minutes to listen to the explanation:



The whole concept is a great step for mainstream science in that it begins to address inter-connectivity at the global scale and define clear boundaries and thresholds that we cannot cross. These kinds of constraints can be effective drivers for creativity and innovation (and not simply limits that imply sacrifice or lower life-quality). It essence it the same concept as sustainability principles, just taken a step further towards details and hard numbers in some of the major groups of material and energy flows. This is similar to the process any organization moving towards sustainability using the framework for SSD would do in terms of grouping activities under each principle and then measuring impacts and implementing solutions to eventually eliminate those impacts (which is in my view the only way to really ensure that we stay below thresholds and within "safe" limits).

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