It’s Getting Hot In Here

After a long break from blogging, I’m glad to have the time to get back! First of all, from my title you will have probably noticed that I’m partially against cellulosic and plug-in hybrids as the solution to the world food crisis that biofuels and oil are helping to fuel. Sure, cellulosic can ensure we don’t use corn for ethanol and we don’t change wheat, barley, and other crops to corn fields for ethanol production. Sure, we can use plug-in hybrids and, if we’re lucky to scale renewables enough, power them with clean electricity and wean ourselves off of coal and oil. But have you stopped to think about what that means? I bet Mr. Henry Ford would have told you that you don’t have to think about it, that you should just go ahead and support the “real” solutions… Right!

In the last two weeks, biofuels have been attacked more than ever before from many angles. The world food crisis has become so severe that anybody who supports any biofuel that either uses food crops or takes land that would have otherwise gone to food production is criticized sharply. The arguments against biofuels, especially corn ethanol, are clear.

·         First, ethanol produced from corn takes a chunk away from the corn that would otherwise go to direct human purposes, excluding livestock (of course, nobody ever questioned before the fact that directing corn and soybeans to cows makes the supply available for exports lower, and therefore keeps prices relatively higher; in other words, food prices before the current crisis could have been much lower if it wasn’t because of the luxury of eating high quantities of meat; maybe a big tax on meat can lower other food prices, which politician will be smart enough to propose this?).

·         Second, as the demand for corn and soybeans surges, land that was used for other purposes is converted to corn and soy fields, therefore increasing the cost of the other crops (wheat, barley, etc.) because they’re less available.

·         Lastly, using ethanol has no impact on how much oil we use because the energy balance is 0 or negative. On top of all this, we are losing benefits from cheaper ethanol that could be imported from Brazil if our goal was really to get rid of oil at the lowest possible cost.

So, we know all these things. We also know that the increasing price of oil, now nearly $125 per barrel, is also pushing food prices up, and that decreasing water supplies and crazier weather is also pitching in into the food price hikes we’re seeing. What we also know is that every policymaker and the public at large is thinking that the way out of this is making ethanol from something that doesn’t take up food or converting our cars to plug-in hybrids to have them run on electricity. So lots of money is going into cellulosic research and lots of venture capitalists are fully funding new ventures that hope to bring to market “environmentally-friendly” plug-in electric vehicles. At the same time, GM, Ford, Toyota, Honda, and other car companies are stepping up their development of these same technologies to bring such cars to market soon. What’s the problem with this?

Continue reading ‘Cellulosic, Plug-In Hybrids Are Biofuel Solutions? Think Again!’

[Update - May 1st, 2008: "Burning the Future: Coal in America" will be airing again soon on the Sundance Channel, May 13th, 16th, and 18th. In addition, the DVD's will go on sale next week on the film's website: www.burningthefuture.com.]

Can coal ever be clean?

These guys are spending tens of millions trying to convince you, the American voter, that the future of America’s energy lies with “clean coal.”

A new documentary film, “Burning the Future: Coal in America” aims to clue Americans in on why “slightly less deadly coal” is probably a more accurate term for what the spooked coal industry is trying to push these days. Or maybe “laundered coal.” But “clean?” Well check out the trailer and see what you think:

Continue reading ‘Can Coal Ever Be Clean? Check Out “Burning the Future: Coal In America” to Find Out’

Here in Washington we’re feeling like pretty good leaders in the climate change movement what with all our great climate change legislation passing and all. But there’s always more to be done, key among them keeping a wary eye out for false solutions as we move ahead. One of those false solutions has tried rearing its ugly head here and we aim to stop it before it’s got a change to flourish. That would be “clean coal“, the only coal option in Washington thanks to our strict emissions limits. You can read all about the plant and it’s history here. It’s currently on hold due to concerns from the Port of Walla Walla, but they plan to try again in the Fall and we’ll be there to say no again.

So, the campaign: It began out of a Fossil Fools Day idea but grew much bigger and just wrapped up last week. The Cascade Climate Network and friends collected 795 photo petitions from eight different universities and colleges in Washington, all speaking out against coal and advocating clean solutions and green jobs. We’ll be sending the finished book to key players in the clean energy future of Washington as well as a few Washington Congressmen who have yet to sign onto the new Clean Water bill that would effectively end mountain top removal.

All in all a bitchin’ effort and a great example of what students can do if they unite across the state and region.

You can check out the finished photo petition, put together in a high school yearbook-style format, as well as a similar photo petition calling for No LNG in Oregon at www.CascadeClimate.org.

We’re less than a week away from the second annual Chill Out: Campus Solutions to Global Warming webcast! This FREE webcast will feature colleges from around the country that are leading the fight against global warming. Ask our panelists questions, learn more about what you can do to confront global warming on your campus, and watch student videos, like this one from Cy-Fair college in Texas:

Chill Out is next Wednesday, April 16 at 7pm Eastern. Sign up today to host this FREE webcast on your campus!

You may have heard this piece of wisdom in Econ 101. “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” Someone is footing the bill.

The mass material affluence that characterizes much of American society is a testament to the power of our economic and political system. The cities we inhabit, the cars we drive, the gadgets we use, the ways we communicate, the food we eat, and the energy we consume are all products of its success.

But remember, “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” Someone is footing the bill.

Allow me to modify that statement. There is no such thing as a dollar menu. Transactions inflict costs on the real world that are not reflected in a market pricing system.

A friend of mine is particularly fond of McDonald’s Dollar menu, and makes a habit of ordering $1 cheeseburgers. The $1 he spends covers the costs McDonald’s has incurred - buying the ingredients, shipping, operational, and labor costs - and of course a slice of profit. However, those are only a fraction of his cheeseburger’s true cost. Enter the world of externalities.

The Economist defines an externality as “An economic side-effect. Externalities are costs or benefits arising from an economic activity that affects somebody other than the people engaged in the economic activity and are not reflected fully in prices.” (1) My friend’s dollar spent does not include the side-effects of cheeseburger consumption, such as longterm costs of carbon emitted by transport and methane toots of former cows. Entirely unconsidered is the irreversible loss of biodiversity from the conversion of rain forest to industrial soy-bean monocrops to feed the hamburgers-in-waiting of American factory farms (2). Humans and nonhumans alike bear the cost of our externalities.

Continue reading ‘Sustainable Justice’

On the centennial celebration of President Theodore Roosevelt’s landmark 1908 Conference of Governors which beckoned the nation’s governors to the White House for a summit that effectively launched the conservation movement, Governors will come together at Yale University to discuss tackling Climate Change for their states. Please take note if your governor is coming:

Jon Corzine, Governor of New Jersey

Chet Culver,* Governor of Iowa

Jim Doyle,* Governor of Wisconsin

Deval Patrick, * Governor of Massachusetts

Jodi Rell, Governor of Connecticut

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of California

Kathleen Sebelius, Governor of Kansas

Christine Todd Whitman, Former EPA head and former NJ Governor

Dr. R.K. Pachauri, Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Nobel Prize Winner

Theodore Roosevelt IV, Managing Director, Lehman Brothers

Jean Charest, Quebec Premier

Eduardo Bours,* Governor of Mexico’s Sonora State

Martin Bursík, Czech Environment Minister

WHEN: FRIDAY, APRIL 18, 2008, 8:30am – 3:00pm

WHERE: Yale University Campus, New Haven, CT (Exact location to be announced by noon on Thurs, April 17)

Events to Include:

Ø Governors Signing Session

Ø Press Conference

Ø Discussion of Governors on State-level Innovation

Ø Public Address by:

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger

&

RK Pachauri (Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

and Winner of 2007 Nobel Prize with Al Gore)

Contact Vanessa Friedman, Tel: 212-751-3342 if you are “Press” and would like to go.

* To be confirmed

The bustling halls of the United Nations climate negotiations still ringing in my ears, it’s been an incredible few months since I and other youth delegates from SustainUS returned from Bali. So many friends and neighbors emailed or stopped by to say “Thanks for sending your email updates from Bali!” and “Welcome home!” I still feel the excitement of working with the best & brightest of the youth climate movement around the world.

Upon returning from Bali as a US youth delegate, I was filled with hope that humanity will create a global consciousness by rising to meet the climate emergency. In the last few months, worsening scientific predictions have only strengthened my belief that we are the leaders we seek. It’s up to us. We have the power to make the climate emergency, and the immense economic opportunities we will realize from solving it, our top priority. A bold, broad movement is needed on a scale larger than the mobilization for World War II. This mobilization will only be accomplished by unleashing a renewed civic engagement.

Continue reading ‘Post-Bali Dispatch: “Lighting Up” a movement in Upstate New York!’

Word on the street has it that The Governator is bringing together a Captain Planet-team of state governors to begin taking solid steps to fight climate change. That’s a great opportunity for Yalies and other locals to get together to stage their own climate change demonstrations and talks. (GET PHOTOS, GET VIDEOS, and POST AWAY!) I’ll highlight more as the details unfold. Check out Yale Daily News highlights from Thomas Kaplan:

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is scheduled to visit Yale next month to deliver an address on climate change, University officials confirmed last week.

Continue reading ‘Governors Unite: Landmark Global Warming Conference to take place at Yale’

#3. “The Amazon Rainforest is not being used for sugar cane for ethanol. This is absolutely wrong! The Amazon region is far from the consumer centers and ports to ship. It needs water in the soil. It is a stupidity to grow cane in the Amazon rainforest. It is stupidity. We will never destroy the Amazon rainforest for sugar cane biofuels.”

- Roberto Rodrigues, former Brazilian Minister of Agriculture, Co-Chairman of the Interamerican Ethanol Commission (IEC)

Note: When a student came up to ask him if he would go on record saying that, he dodged the question by not answering it. As far as I am concerned, he went on record saying that when he got up to talk. - SRO

#2. “It’s cheap as dirt to dig up coal.”
- Klaus S. Lackner, Ewing-Worzel Professor of Geophysics at Columbia

Note: It’s as cheap as coal to dig up coal…unless you ask those that are being affected by mountaintop removal. - SRO

#1. “Clean coal” as part of a solution in memo to the upcoming President.

- Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute of Columbia

Note: He also directly quoted his book review in The Economist in the Presidential memo, which said, “If everyone were as sensible as Jeffrey Sachs…” - SRO

To listen to the talks at State of the Planet, click here; (You may have to register).

The State of the Planet Conference convened at the Earth Institute at Columbia University this past Thursday and Friday. Man, have special interests grabbed the environmental movement like a bulldog by a throat, or what? Perhaps I’m getting increasingly hypersensitive as we continue to slog on, but panelists seemed more divided by the issues this year than in 2006. In short, we all agree that we must do something, but none of us can agree on what that may be.

Can you hear me now?
Of course if you ask a telecommunications person what will solve world poverty, he’s going to say, “Telecommunications;” and ask an agronomist what will help solve the fuel crisis, and he will emphatically respond, “Agriculture.” Ask a buttoned-up economist how he sees the world, and he’ll say, “an industrialized free market economy,” and give the Chairman of the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority the podium on climate change solutions, and she’ll talk up nuclear like it’s a half-silver bullet solution out of hell.

As for the latter—given by U.K.’s Lady Barbara Thomas Judge, (“Babs,” as I like to call her)—was one of the more egregiously one-sided talks of the afternoon. For a balanced discussion, you can’t just give the benefits of an energy (and yes there are benefits to all forms of energy depending on how you slice it), without some of the embedded costs and a look into an alternative, well-informed opinion.

Continue reading ‘State of the Planet Puts Nuclear on the Table’