Global Warming Notes from an Ordinary Futurist

Great Post: This is Not a Drill

2008-07-12T22:48:00.000-07:00

My mentor and colleague, Glen Hiemstra, is becoming something of an energy futurist lately. I really like his most recent post at www.futurist.com, entitled "This is Not a Drill."

Altruism Isn't Enough

2008-07-06T20:58:00.000-07:00

I like to think altruism works for the human race. Or even self-interest across a time span like a human lifetime. But then I think about what I've actually seen. In the last two years or so - since climate change became more of a commonly talked about issue, more accepted, there has been change. Across those two years, a few of the people I know have made significant changes. They almost never drive, they plan carefully, they conserve. I've made changes, although less than a lot of people I know. I still drove to a trailhead today to walk the dog, when I could have left from the house. I chose a fairly local trailhead, but still....

Then, came the last few months. As gas prices rose dramatically, almost everyone I know changed behavior to at least some extent. Many to a great extent. The change is big enough for shock value. My thirty dollar a tank car is now a fifty dollar a tank car. I think about driving trip distances. There's a party in Kent I'm not going to go to, but which I would have driven to a year ago.

So simply understanding climate change was real didn't change behavior to the extent we need. But gas price change - something real and tangible - made more real changes. This makes me think a few things:

Gas prices need to get higher
Regulation, penalties, and carbon taxes are probably even more important that I thought

Junuary

2008-06-14T09:53:00.000-07:00

Washington State has been cold. The first week of June was the coldest on record, and a recent Seattle Times headline read "Colder than Siberia," which in fact, we were. I'm doing laundry this morning, and it's almost all sweatshirts. I've heard the term "Junuary" used to describe this miserable month.
My friends on the east coast have been way too hot; their blogs bemoan the loss of useful midday activities as they succumb to the urge to stay inside or nap and try to work their writing time around the unusual weather. Another friend just posted about her family being unable to get to the store etc. because of the floods in Iowa (and they're among the lucky; their house isn't under water).
Maybe now that both parties appear to have a nominee, we'll start to hear some political chatter about this. We could use some leadership on the issue from Mr. Obama, who seems to have the ear of a lot of people, and who speaks astonishingly well. Let's hope he doesn't wait until after the election to get loud on this issue.

A Conversation at Starbucks

2008-06-01T11:06:00.000-07:00

In a line at Starbucks yesterday:

"It cost me $50.00 to fill up my tank."
Grunt. "Cost me $75. Did you see that show about Tesla?"
"The car. That's cool."
Admiringly: "Guy was pretty smart, too."
In agreement "Yeah."
"Bet we coulda had electric cars earlier. Tesla knew a lot."
"Yep."

Opportunity Knocks: Can anyone build a better plane?

2008-05-24T07:47:00.000-07:00

I booked flights the other day. Ouch. Since I travel by air four or five times a year, I watch the industry a little. Its struggling. Its fleet is aging, fuel prices have a big impact on bottom line, and nearly everything about airlines is regulated or unionized. Business models are old. A few carriers, like Southwest, are doing sort of okay, and the others are doing less than okay.

We think that we need more fuel efficient cars? We do. And airlines need better jets.

Yet access to new planes is controlled by a worldwide duopoly: Airbus and Boeing. Boeing is late on its popular (but still not flying) Dreamliner, and just announced a probably multi-year delay in completing design for 737 replacement. Airbus isn't doing well enough to take up that slack, and may be adding to the shortage of anything modern or useful available for sale. So the existing airplane suppliers are in trouble, but the demand for airplanes is huge. Airplanes and air flight, and even better, pleasant air flight like we once enjoyed (How long has it been since you looked forward to getting on a plane?).

I bet someone out there is assembling a design team to beat Boeing and Airbus to the punch. Yes, it's a high barrier to entry. Yes it's an expensive and risky and regulated process. But look how much good it could do the world. And whoever makes an agile and green plane first, might also see a pretty good reward.

Acid Red Flags

2008-05-23T05:57:00.000-07:00

Eight years ago, I heard oceanographer Sylvia Earle keynote an international GIS conference. Her talk deepened my understanding of the importance of the oceans, which I pretty much got anyway, and of their fragility. They don't look fragile. I grew up in sailing family and they often felt vast, beautiful, awe-inspiring, moody, etc. But I wouldn't have used the word fragile until I heard Sylvia talk.
This morning, the Seattle Times reports that ocean acidification is happening faster than climate change models predicted (remember - one of my predictions for 2008 was that many indicators would, unfortunately, come faster than predicted). Apparently our coastlines are plagued by water that is hard for marine life to live in. As our might be soon (is? In some places, for sure, because of the same things we're doing that cause climate change).
Here is a short quote from the article, "All along the coast, the scientists found regions where the water was acidic enough to dissolve the shells and skeletons of clams, corals and many of the tiny creatures at the base of the marine food chain. Acidified water also can kill fish eggs and a wide range of marine larvae."

If a legendary Texas oilman says it....

2008-05-19T21:18:00.000-07:00

The end quote of an interview that CNN published today with T. Boone Pickens is, "But we are going to have to do something different in America. You can't keep paying out $600 billion a year for oil."
The guts of the story are that Mr. Pickens is going into wind farming. I can't think of better people to do this than oilmen and oilwomen (surely there must be oilwomen?). These are people that understand the energy markets and know how to make viable energy businesses. And it takes their money - hopefully a lot of it -- out of the losing game of squeezing ever more oil out of every possible source.
Nice to have a bit of good news in this generally bad-news era.

It's all short-term thinking

2008-04-16T21:22:00.000-07:00

The part of climate change / rising carbon levels that we created before about a decade ago is excusable, maybe. But since then? After we understood that there was a very strong likelihood that our behavior was changing our atmosphere? Maybe it was even two decades ago -1987 was the year of the ozone hole, after all.
Short term thinking says I'm going to drive today, use too much power today, invest in oil stocks today, whatever. The results of short-term thinking are all over our current economic woes. We get told to spend out way to a healthy economy whether we need anything or not. Short-term thinking - money spent today doesn't give us money for tomorrow. Businesses live on tiny, tiny margins. For example, Linens and Things is expected to go under because of slow spending. That means they didn't have a few months of cushion. Banks go under because they lent money with no safety net since it looked so good and sweet on the bottom line (WaMu is in that situation).
Short-term thinking will get us past the tipping point in climate change. We have to think longer and harder. We need to accept slowing down so we can be more deliberate. We need to accept short term pain for long-term gain.

Snow, and Cooling Public Budgets

2008-03-30T08:59:00.000-07:00

I started this blog partly to record my observations and thoughts about climate change. There are other places better at the science.

Today,climate change seems a lot more accurate than global warming, but that's because my first spring daffodils had their pale and tender heads glued to the sidewalk with last night's very late spring snowfall. I can remember quite a few winters in Washington with no snow; this year we've had a lot.

I spent Friday and Saturday at a City Council Retreat, and the Council did suggest the city include sustainability as an overall goal in addition to the many smaller ways it's already in our goal set - like green building programs. But we're having a tough budget year, and its going to be hard to keep all of our green initiatives going. Well-conceived sustainability programs almost all have an eventual payoff, especially when you consider the public triple bottom line (environmental stewardship, social equity, and economic progress). But a lot of them are in that tender start up time when any new venture needs continued funding, and in a downturn, many cities get hurt. I'm hopeful that through these tough budget times, elected officials around the country will be able to make the tough, sustainable, long-term decisions.

Voters are going to have to help them.

Life Imitating Art Imitating Life....

2008-03-25T18:08:00.000-07:00

I was at a science fiction convention this weekend, and at one point there was a discussion between me and someone else about science fiction plots, and the other person mused that we would see more global warming plots in sf books. We have seen some - Kim Stanley Robinson has a great trilogy out on the topic, and I have it as background in two as-yet-unpublished novels, for example.

Anyway, I just picked up James Patterson's fourth Maximum Ride book for my bus reading pleasure, and he's addressing it there. So two days after that discussion, that what I'm reading, entirely on accident.

And then today, there is more Antarctic ice breaking free. And some of the setting in the Patterson Book is Antarctica.

We science fiction writers like to be prescient and preen a bit when we think of examples like cell phone which are a lot like Star Trek communicators. But I for one don't want to be prescient on global warming.

I suspect I will be.

Is it just me, or is it getting worse out there?

2008-03-16T08:50:00.000-07:00

This week's news stories highlight that the real data is worse than we thought. China's greenhouse gas emissions grew faster than projected. This means the IPCC report was based on data that looked better than the real data. This morning, the story is about glaciers melting faster than expected, which may destabilize India, where the rivers are largely melt water.
I can't remember a major global warming story that showed data which was better than expected. My fear this morning is that if we get far enough behind the global warming curve (if we aren't already - except to quote a popular politician, hope is a good thing), poverty and economic damage will make it worse - the desperate don't care about being green. That's a Maslow's hierarchy thing. I can recycle and buy green products and slowly change my lifestyle (today's puzzle is what to do with end of life battery backup for the desktop computer), but the hungry and sick will have more imperative worries.
The household eleven year old came home and got us all playing a subsistence farming game last week. My game family all slowly died, except the ones I sent away who might have gotten menial jobs, or might have gotten sold into slavery.
Much of the world is waking up to the danger, but there are clear signs of boredom here in America. Climate change should be a top issue in this election, but instead our economy is the top issue. It's not even the war. It's gas being almost half the price of gas in Europe. Which underscores my point above about poverty and economic damage.
Maybe if the data keeps getting worse, climate change will rise to the top after the election.

Book Review: Vanishing World, the Endangered Arctic by Mireille De La Lez and Fredrik Granath

2008-02-23T20:37:00.000-08:00

I'm going to a more formal review of this book along with another one tonight or tomorrow over at Futurist.com, but I wanted to post my experience of reading it here.

Vanishing World is a picture book. As far as I can tell, it's goal is to show us what we are in grave danger of losing in the Arctic.

I was sitting on the couch this morning finishing the last half of it with our golden retriever, Nixie, curled up next to me and the sun just beginning to paint almost-frozen garden outside green and gold. I'd turn a page, and then exclaim about the bear or the arctic fox or the sunshine on the ice. Primarily a picture book, Vanishing World kept pulling visceral, emotional reactions from me. I'd show particular pictures to Nixie, and she'd dutifully look, and then put her head back on her paws. Every once in a while, I'd have to go show a picture to Toni in her office.

I really enjoyed this. I think you might, too - whoever you are.

After I get the formal review done, I'll add a link to it in a post here.

Doesn't Feel Like Global Warming

2008-02-03T21:13:00.000-08:00

today. It's pretty cold all over the Northwest, reportedly from a La Nina year. Implies the ocean currents have a more immediate affect than the warming trend.

On Friday morning, as I was leaving for a weekend workshop on the Oregon coast, the front page of the Seattle Times had an article about how much snow we've had this year. All the east-west routes across the Cascades were closed that morning, and at least I90 was closed today on my way home. We've certainly had more snow than usual in Bellevue, even though we don't have any accumulation to speak of. So the front page is an article on the heavy snowpack. Three pages in, there's an article about how global warming is threatening our snowpack on the west coast.

Not this year.

Climate is complex.

Global Warming Opinions

2008-01-14T06:36:00.000-08:00

I spent the weekend at Rustycon, which is a small local science fiction convention in the Seattle area. I moderated two panels on global warming. Unlike the larger conventions, the panelists were generally bright and well known fans, but not experts on climate change. One of the panels was entitled something like "Climate change, science or religion" and turned out to largely be a rant about people who believe the fact that climate change is caused by humans tending to be closed to any other ideas. I generally agree with that, in the sense that I'm quite open to hearing all sides of the debate. But I have to say that for me, it's a risk/reward kind of thing, and it seems pretty likely that we are at least a large part of the problem. Not only that, but most of the behavior changes needed to reduce our carbon output are a good idea anyway. Almost all the easy first wins are in conservation - whether it's using mass transit, simply turning off the lights, or installing building systems smart enough to turn the lights off for you, and which don't take more energy in their turn than leaving all the lights on), and shifting to renewables, particularly water, sun, and the like. Wouldn't it be nice to get all our energy from home?

Anyway, both panels had a healthy dose of skepticism. Maybe a little too healthy - I left slightly disturbed. Given that the worst downside risk of being wrong is major damage to the only atmosphere we have, and that's there is lots of supporting evidence for the theory that we can mitigate this, why don't we?

Book Recommendation: Storm Chaser

2008-01-09T20:03:00.001-08:00

I don't often get sent books to review - I do recommend books that I like on my own writing site, and Glen Hiemstra and I both occasionally recommend books on Glen's Futurist.com site (and I will cross-post this there in the future with comments on a few other books, mostly obtained in the usual way, by paying money in a bookstore). If I don't like a book, it doesn't matter who sends it; I just stay quiet. There are enough critical reviewers. Anyway, publisher Harry N. Abrams, Inc. sent me two books that deal very directly with global warming, and I liked them. I waited patiently for the holidays to end before talking about them (who wants a Christmas gift about the scariest things happening in the world?).

Anyway, I'm digressing. Today, I want to recommend a stunning narrated photography book called Storm Chaser, A Photographer's Journey, by Jim Reed.

Storm Chaser relates well to my last few posts, where I discussed weird weather. The book is a series of beautifully presented professional photographs of storms, and might be worth buying just for the photos. But it's real strength is in the straightforward narrative about global warming and climate change. Storm Chaser is organized by season, and each season includes a discussion of storm chasing and of the beauty and mystery of that season. This discussion - and the accompanying photos - show how climate change is now a central thread for people fascinated by powerful weather. It is the elephant in the sky that can't be ignored.

Amazingly, I still run into skeptics when I talk about global warming. Most of the skeptics have desk jobs. People who are close to the land - farmers and cowboys and hikers and outfitters -are not skeptical. A storm chaser is close to land and sea and sky, to wind and rain and flood and drought, to tornado and squall and rainbow. So who better to understand and document our changing atmosphere than a storm chaser?

Anyway, Jim Reed did it well. Consider Storm Chaser recommended reading.

Weird Weather

2008-01-08T07:01:00.000-08:00

Well, two days ago, I predicted the weird weather would continue this year. Here, it's cold and wintry, and kind of normal. But they've had tornadoes in the Midwest this morning. This is not a normal winter event, and it ties in really well with the book recommendation I'm hoping to find time to write up tonight.

Year End/Beginning - Personal Review and Goals

2008-01-07T18:07:00.001-08:00

sWell, in 2007,

I started taking the bus at least a few days a week
We changed out the washer and dryer for energy star appliances
We changed out half of the windows for more efficient ones
When we replaced some carpet, we used green carpet
We tried out green paint in the laundry room
I switched to much less use of bottled water (using sigg bottles and a britta filter instead)
We changed the holiday lights to all LED's
We worked on habits, like unplugging chargers when not in use. Some habits changed more than others.
Not everything was positive - we installed automatic sprinkler systems, and watered more. The garden loved it, but I'd bet our water use was up instead of down (even with rain sensors).

So for 2008,

I think conservation habits like turning off lights will be important
I want to pare down my consumption
We'll change out the frig and the heating system (both are struggling anyway, so it's not purely altruistic like the washer and dryer)
If I can stick to my bus commutes that will be good enough
I want to actually compare energy use in 2006 with 2007, and in 2007 with 2008

We already had the fluorescent light bulbs and bought Terra Passes with air flight.

The hard ones on that list will be keeping lights off (I tried, but didn't get a lot better in 2007) and reducing consumption. I'm like a lot of other Americans -- retail therapy seems to sorta work, or at least get practiced. So I want to buy less. Which would also be good for my finances. But consumption is like an addiction.... I'll report back from time to time.

Anyone out there have other interesting stuff they did or plan to do?

Predictions for 2008

2008-01-06T22:19:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the long hiatus. I was busy finishing a book, which always takes a lot out of me, and we had the lovely chaos of the holidays (yes, we put up lights, but only LED lights, even on the tree). But I've got a pile of a subjects and a few book recommendations coming your way soon. I wanted to start out with my 2008 predictions around climate change. First - an overall observation - we're holding our breath for the elections to be over. At least in America, and maybe worldwide. That's the overall statement about the year - a year of holding our breath, of halting progress, of growing hope and idealism....

- There will be more wild weather. That includes extreme cold as well as extreme heat. Climate change is not a gentle process, and we’ll be reminded of that yet again.
- Some key indicators, like sea ice and the Greenland ice sheet, will continue to change faster than predicted.
- Climate Change will be an issue in the American presidential election, but not one of the top three even though it should be.
- Signs of fatigue will set in. The green movement has so far resulted in some real and lasting change, but this year won’t see as great a rate of change as last year. Partly that’s because many of us have made the easy changes and the next round is tougher. Partly it’s because the economy is stressed and the new Prius in the driveway is still seen as a luxury.
- Gas prices will stay high, maybe dipping in the fall pre-election, but not far, or for long.
- Alternative energy will keep doing well. More venture capital will keep flowing, and real money will be both made and lost.

What are your predictions? Add them as comments....

Missing From the Political Debate

2007-12-10T06:46:00.000-08:00

It's always frustrating when something you predict doesn't happen. But it's worse when it's something that really matters. And global warming is just not as big of an issue as it should be. I thought it would out drive everything by now, even the war (which should still be the second biggest issue), and I'm not seeing it. Immigration seems to be higher, and why does that feel like a bait and switch? We need to focus on the life or death of the planet issues.
Maybe it's because on immigration there's an enemy that's not us (the struggling immigrants) and in global warming it's becoming more and more clear we are the problem.

The Clean, Green Economy

2007-12-08T22:58:00.000-08:00

“Peak Oil” is the time when half of the oil in the world has been harvested, and all harvests thereafter will be harder, slower, and more expensive. It’s a place where the price of oil has nowhere to go but up. Many people think we’re there. A few think we’re past it. Only a very few think we’ve a long way to go (and they’re probably the same people that think the current warming trend is just plain normal, and Elvis was kidnapped by aliens).

Peak oil is the beginning of the inevitable fall of the oil-driven economy. What I want to know is when is the inevitable rise of the alternate-energy economy? Are we there yet? Will peak oil by itself drive us there?

I’d say no, since of course we have the collapsing economy and world-war-three-over-energy-resources scenario to avoid first (and we're on our way to that, maybe as close as we are to peak oil). But assuming we have the political delicacy to avoid the worst case, what do we need to start the upwelling of the right moves to free us of oil? There are some nice roadmaps being developed. The IPCC report has some specific ideas. I’m reading a book called “Apollo’s Fire” by Congressman Jay Inslee and Bracken Hendricks. It has a series of action items in it. There are other sources of good ideas out there, too. So we’re becoming rich with reasonable plans, and need to pick and choose and move forward to the clean, green economy.

That's what I want for Christmas: the see the inevitable rise of the clean, green economy.

Scarcity

2007-12-08T15:50:00.000-08:00

We had as much trouble finding LED lights as we had finding a Wii. Being tenacious people, we found both, but I was really happy to see the climate change friendly lights be in such demand. The small signs of fundamental change in thinking are nice to see.

Rural America

2007-11-26T04:56:00.000-08:00

We went to the beach on the Washington coast for Thanksgiving. One of the things we noticed, at least in our rental house and rental houses next door to us, was that there was no recycling. We spent some time in the rural southwest earlier this year - also no recycling. I mean none - no glass recycling, no paper recycling, no sort-your-own recycling (I presume you can do that at the dumps, but we didn't go there).
Now, that's two for two on trips away from major cities this year. I bet we didn't find the only two rural spots without recycling. I'm sure many do have it, but my guess is more don't. It's expensive to set up.
I'm reminded of something I heard from the American Institute of Architects: the biggest easy gains, the ones that pencil out right away and save resources for the more dramatic changes, are all in conservation. Which also means recycling.
It's also reinforces the idea that cities have the economies of scale to allow for more responsible stewardship of the planet. It's easy to think of the wild west or the wild and fairly unpopulated Northwest coasts as pristine, but per capita, I bet they're a lot harder on the Earth.

Mass Transit is Good for Reading, and so is Amazon

2007-11-21T06:50:00.000-08:00

I've been taking the bus a lot more lately, and I rode the 250 Express over to a play in Seattle last night. We were stuck in even-worse-than-usual accident-induced traffic, and I had a chance to finish a book. I also noticed that about a third of the other riders were reading. This on a day when a major study came out about how we're reading less. I also talked to two strangers, which is rare. If I'd been stuck in my car I wouldn't have done either.

Also of note - the bus was packed - standing room only. So why did we just vote down a transportation initiative?

Also -- good for Amazon on releasing its new reader, the Kindle. I haven't got mine yet (I probably will, both as a futurist gadget and since I'm a frequent reader out of physical space for books in my office). But that's less tree-cutting, and hopefully it will get used enough to far offset whatever toxic products it puts in the waste stream later. Whether it becomes "the product" we've all been waiting for as far as making electronic fiction reading actually pleasurable or not, it appears to be progress.

Anyway, today will be driving to the beach (but I get to be the passenger), and I'll try and print the summary of the latest IPCC report as car-reading fodder.

Happy Thanksgiving, all!

And now I've been to the FCC hearing...

2007-11-10T06:01:00.000-08:00

But I didn't get to talk to the FCC. Here is what happened....

The hearing got called with almost no notice. For 4:00 - 10:00 PM on the Friday before a three day weekend. Bad FCC. But I'm local, I care about media consolidation, and my day job is related to the FCC as I manage cable franchises and television stations (and a bunch more stuff that that - all of the technology for a medium sized city, so I don't actually get to spend much time on these issues, even though I care about them). I also think the media consolidation we've already had has pretty well ruined the national conversation about key issues like climate change, and further media consolidation is ludicrous.

I had an important meeting scheduled to go to 3 PM at Bellevue City Hall, and it then went over 5 minutes. I drove to a park and ride and took the bus to Seattle (remember climate change) and discovered the bus tunnel for the first time. I made sure I knew how to get back to the tunnel, having learned from big cities like Paris and NY that you'd best check landmarks so you don't get lost in the forest of buildings.

Thus fortified, I walked to Town Hall, which I am a member of, and which was a great place to hold the hearings. I was running over what I'd like to say to the commissioners in my head and trying not to be nervous about the whole thing. I got there about 4:10 to find the Governor delivering a very good speech, although she was facing us instead of the FCC commissioners, which seemed not-quite-right. The room was over half full, but I got a good seat anyway.

Then Maria Cantwell and Jay Inslee and Dave Reichert and other Washington State politicians delivered addresses to us via pre-recorded video. These were all good speeches and they got 5 minutes each. But there wasn't even a pretense that the information had been prepared FOR the FCC except that it ended up in the formal record of the meeting, which might have been the point although no one said so. At any rate, the FCC didn't have any doubt how they stood - they'd just met with them in person in Washington. Then a few more local politicians who had made it here (for the Washington ones, the FCC had scheduled this while congress was in session, so they couldn't be here) talked for their five minutes each. Good for them.

Then each FCC commissioner talked for five minutes (except one, who said he wasn't going to waste our time, but is suspected to be on the pro-consolidation side of the issue and might just have not wanted to be yelled at). Oh - and the audience was very interactive with all of these speeches. And very much against media consolidation. Like 95% or better against media consolidation, and against the FCC and against big government. Not for much as far as I could tell, except a few people, but that's a different issue. And the main topic was something worth being against.

So, now we're a hour and a half into the hearing, maybe more. We've heard a lot of short and very well-written and well delivered speeches. Could have been a national debate final or something. About two of them have been cautiously trying to explain to a hostile audience why media consolidation is good. They were pretty ineffective.

Next, a panel of experts gets five minutes each. Frank Blethen from the Seattle Times did a great job. Some Latino labor union people got the audience almost in tears. Three-quarters of these speakers were against further consolidation. These are also all professionally delivered talks, and I learned from listening to them. There were about fifteen television stations worth of cameras in the room, and I actually think this part would be the one most worth listening to as far as the prepared speeches go.

Now it's 6:30 and not one member of the general public has gotten to talk to the FCC until now. So the general public gets two minutes each. Belatedly, I figure out I need to sign up and go find the table. It's in the far back, on a different floor, in a darkish corner. I'm number 227. Why wasn't the table right up front when you walked through the doors?

I go back up and listen to the public testimony. It's actually quite good. I'm proud of us - the general public. Mind you, by general public, I mostly mean local broadcasters, local small press, activists, people who do their own shows on public TV, minorities, children. Bright people with the skin in the game of this issue. There's actually some humor now, too. We've been in the room for over three hours being talked to, and now there's some punchy but good humor and some tender moments.

But 8:30 or so, they're on speaker number 29. I'm 227. A little over an hour to get through 20 speakers. That means there's 10 hours worth of people who want to talk, and I'm hour number 10. Now, some will give up and go home. So maybe I'll get to talk by midnight. I haven't had any dinner, and thank god I brought water since there isn't any of that either. There's no support except bathrooms and a sign that says "bottled water only" but doesn't provide any bottled water. I've never taken a bus from Seattle after dark. I think I can find the bus tunnel. I'm hungry. It's been a long week at work, not one of those 40 hour weeks of hard work that feel about right, but one of those 50 to 60 hour weeks, and I've got a novel to finish approving the copy edits on, to boot. I decide I can't wait until midnight to talk to the FCC, and they probably won't be able to hear anything by then, anyway, even if they try. They're human, and six hours of talking heads all saying close to the same thing will wear anyone out.

So I find the bus tunnel, which is closed (it wouldn't be closed in Paris). But given the evening, this seems oddly appropriate. It takes about 15 minutes of wandering around Seattle in the dark and the rain while people are rowdy and a little scary to find the bus stop that will work, and I get twenty blessed minutes to sit and read fiction while I get driven across the lake and back to suburbia.

Surely we can do public process better than this? That's partly my job, so I'll mull over it after I've caught up on my sleep. In the meantime, well, if you see the FCC, tell them media consolidation is a bad idea.

I've been to Villahermosa, Mexico, and New Orleans, LA, US

2007-11-06T06:51:00.001-08:00

And I'm pretty sure neither will ever look the same. Both were beautiful cities, both centers of unique cultures.

It's not any one weather event, even these, but the unrelenting showy pounding we're getting that seems so dramatic.

Everyone I've heard talk recently, and every credible scientist I've read, suggests that things are happening faster than models predicted. Ice is melting faster. Species are getting in trouble faster (note to self - I'm part of a species). I'm wondering if I need to get to the Inside Passage or to Venice in the next few years to see them at all.

Also at risk? New York, NY. Ever been to Central Park is when the cool spring air is scented by colorful flowers dripping from every corner and birds seem to be trying to fill all the tree branches at once?

Two Events of Note

2007-11-06T06:41:00.000-08:00

Saturday September 10th is being billed as Carbon Offset Day - which translates to an opportunity to plant trees. Always a good idea.

And more related to climate change than you might think (by dint of the damage media consolidation does to the variety and power of what we hear), the FCC is in town on ridiculously short notice for a hearing. They want to know if we think three or less people should own all the media in the US. Yes, that's an oversimplification, but no by much. Drop by Town Hall on the 9th and tell them that's not a very good idea. Note that there appears to be an email address you can use if you can't get there in person.

Seattle Shines

2007-10-31T07:16:00.000-07:00

(This is a cross-post from one I made at Futurist.com)

The City of Seattle reported that its on-target to its Kyoto goals. That is fabulous. There’s a conference of Mayor’s meeting there this week that includes other global warming luminaries as well (Clinton/.Gore – sound like a ticket to you? And perhaps they are now doing even more good than they did in the White House).

In a post awhile back, I mentioned that Global warming is a problem we need to solve on a global basis. I still believe that. The good we do in Seattle must be joined by the good we do in Shanghai, in Dubai, and in Mexico City. To succeed here, we must have an unprecedented level of global cooperation.

But that doesn’t diminish the value of the shining light in our region. I’m quite proud of Seattle. Of my city, Kirkland, too (We have signed up and are working hard to get a handle on measurement. We’re behind Seattle in our program, but still, we’re in there making real changes). Cities, in particular, matter. Statics show that over half of the world’s populations will live in cities in the very near future. We should all cheer the luminaries leading them to cleaner and better designs.

CNN's Planet in Peril

2007-10-23T18:10:00.000-07:00

Appears to be a good show so far, about 10 minutes in. It's a bit interrupted by fire news. Global warming news interrupting global warming news.

A Conversation at Work...

2007-10-23T07:26:00.001-07:00

Depending on which south you're in, the world is drying up around you or burning up around you. I work in the Pacific Northwest, where warmer and wetter seems to be the prevailing crystal-ball fuzz about us and global warming. The conversation went something like this.

"Glad we live here."
"All that must be climate change, right?"
"Pretty much."
"We're lucky we have so much rain."
"But we're not always out of the woods for drinking water."
"Snowpack's been bad some years."
"Last winter was okay."
"Think about places like Arizona, where there's too many people for the ecosystem. What happens when California wants the Colorado River water back?"
"Where are all those people going to go?"
"Uh oh."

Kansas blocks coal plant

2007-10-19T06:47:00.000-07:00

This morning I found a Washington Post story re-printed on page A16 of the Seattle Times. Pretty well buried. "Kansas cites carbon emmions in blocking coal plants," by Steven Mufson.
Good for Kansas.
Good for us, too. The ruling by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment was based on the April April Supreme Court ruling that greenhouse gasses could be considered polltants.
This is too big to bury on page A16 - it's a rather important ruling, particularly if it gets held up.
I wouldn't have expected this to come from Kansas, but I'm really pleased it did. That sends an even stronger message than if one of us on the coast started this trend.

Resource Wars: Water in the South

2007-10-16T07:08:00.000-07:00

I get an email called something like "The Homeland Security Daily Wire" every day at work. One topic in yesterday's email was the drought in the south. It showed up again in the paper today - in an AP article, so it's probably in everyone's paper today.

Climate change is going to redistribute resources. At this point, at least in the American south today, we're dealing with it in the courts. But what happens when if whole communities run out of water?

What kind of long-term thinking do we need to do now to manage this kind of issue globally?

Al Gore and the IPCC Deserved the Medal

2007-10-12T21:50:00.000-07:00

It's amazing how much grumbling has been going on about the Nobel Prize award today. But maybe that's a sign of how good and important the work is.

Peace requires a world without resource wars. Think about Maslow's hierarchy. It defines those things we need, like food and shelter, as required before we can reach for the higher-pinnacle stuff like enlightenment.

Before we can reach for anything as lofty and elusive as peace, we need the bottom of the pyramid built - we need solutions to problems like hunger and inexpensive and healthy energy, like basic human health and freedoms, and the right to lay our head down at night and know that we won't be killed for something as uncontrollable as gender or race, as ethnic origin or religion.

Let's all quit grumbling and get on with all the myriad ways we're looking for peace - for ourselves, our families, our countries, our home.

Bits from Discover Brilliant

2007-09-25T13:01:00.000-07:00

I learned a lot from the Discover Brilliant conference...the last post referenced a little bit of it, and there was way more than I have time to post. But I wanted to mention a few things I learned.

One - I'd never really thought about the fact that the energy grid isn't really a storage mechanism...its a great big on-demand delivery network. So if power gets produced that doesn't get used, it generally gets lost. That makes me understand a few things more clearly, including why extra hot days or extra cold nights are so hard on the system. Of interest, a renewable grid might have more storage (for example in form of plug-in hybrids) and have more origination points.

Two - There is some talk about energy star like labelling of buildings. I mean we had things like Medallion All-Electric homes (is anyone else old enough to remember those?), but this is about efficiency and might be a useful scrap of transparency. A buyer might want to know this, for example.

Three - We don't have much information. For example, I don't know if my frig or my washer or my heater or my various entertainment electronics are using more power except anecdotally. A household measuring grid would be cool. Think RFID and Wireless and little bitty personal meters. Then expand that though into commercial buildings, which are starting to get there via something called a Building Information Manager. Although I bet a lot of buildings don't have them. Or don't have good, modern ones.

Four - for all the hype about alternative sources of fuel (and that is an important issue), there are easier and bigger gains in conservation - in buildings, around driving and travel, at home, etc.

So with that I'm out of lunch hour...

A Cross-Post on Futurist.com

2007-09-18T08:59:00.000-07:00

I'm attending days one and two of the Brilliant Green conference in Seattle. I got up early this morning and wrote a blog post over at Futurist.com on the conference opening. I promise to post more later - this is a really rich conference.

At the moment I'm hearing from a City of Seattle staff member mentioning how strong Seattle is on green building. I know the cities around Seattle are doing the same thing - working on green building programs. Lets hear it for us.

Weeding the Park

2007-09-08T18:50:00.000-07:00

I spent the morning pulling invasives out of Watershed Park as part of a volunteer effort called "Green Kirkland" that is sponsored by the Cascade Land Conservancy. The Nix and I walked to the park (which took an hour and fifteen minutes), and then she laid down and watched me (and was a very good golden retreiver) while I wandered about pulling pretty-smelling weeds and wondered if I was going to have energy to weed the garden (no). It took up two hours to get home, and Nixie held up better than me.

It seemed like a lot of people (there were around twenty-five or thirty) making very small progress, but at the end of the three-hour stint, there really was visible change. Mitigating climate change is going to be a lot like that.

Maybe I'll get to my own garden tomorrow. It has its share of invasives.

Local events for Seattleites

2007-09-06T07:07:00.000-07:00

This is "Sustainable September," which seems to be catching on as a green event. A Google search finds an Australian site for it first. Well, in Kirkland, we have our own version of Sustainable September, which is sponsored by our Chamber of Commerce, in partnership with local cities and colleges. And as is the way of the world, one piece of knowledge leads to another, and at the opening event for Sustainable September, I learned about a Seattle area conference, Discover Brilliant 2007. Both local events look like good opportunities to learn.

Weather Extremes

2007-09-03T21:43:00.000-07:00

We just enjoyed a nearly-perfect Labor-day weekend, even managing to get a painting project done that we'd put off for a month because of an excessively rainy and overcast late summer in Washington State. We tend to do family check-ins around the holidays -- and the Arizona and California Cooper contingents both reported extraordinary heat. The California heat apparently played havoc with the power grid down there, and Phoenix has had a record number of three-digit temperature days this year.
Hurricane season is off to a strong start (Felix is heading toward land in Central America as I write this). Certainly there have been many other weather-related top news stories (maybe some chicken and egg, but the events have been happening). Floods in West Africa. Worse Monsoons that normal in India.
As a futurist, I generally avoid predictions (in favor of broader termed discussions about likely outcomes), but I'm willing to predict that wilder weather pretty-much worldwide. Even though there's progress on some small fronts and a lot more attention to climate change, we're still increasingly destabilizing a very sensitive system.
I think I'd best be sure out emergency stocks are good before the end of summer!

News from this month

2007-08-19T10:19:00.000-07:00

August seems to be full of news on the global warming front. From today, three bits. A CNN article says Arctic sea ice expected to hit record low. This is not particularly news as it's been predicted widely, but it's one of the global warming affects we really don't want to see happen even faster than current models predict. This is one of the feedback loop problems - the more ice you have, the more sunlight reflects away from the earth, and the more ice you keep (or gain). The less ice you have...well, you get the idea. And there are a lot of feeding grounds up north for key animals in the food chain which depend on typical (cold) conditions.

There is, of course, Hurricane Dean. While we had hurricanes before global warming, they are expected to be be stronger and more frequent as they like warm water. Dean is approaching Jamaica at a category 4 as I write this, and may hit Cancun at a category 5.

And in today's PI, a more upbeat editorial called Global warming: The race is on in our state, by Joe Copeland. He lauds our leaders who have taken strong stances related to global warming and talks about Bracken Hendrick's and Jay Inslee's new book, Apollo's Fire, which according to Copeland suggests that tooling up for new, clean energy will bring up many good things - economically and for the planet. That's the attitude we need - that we can make this better.

Santa Barbara's Light Blue Line

2007-08-16T05:26:00.000-07:00

You know how some issues get City Council halls overflowing? I've seen it happen over siting a jail in a city, over hosting a tent city, over almost anything residents are a little frightened or a little worried about. It is almost always a good thing when an idea galvanizes a community enough (pro or con) that a lively conversation ensures. Democracy at work and all that.
My dad sent me one of those from Santa Barbara, California. Now, if you've never been there, Santa Barbara is the kind of place you imagine when you think of an oceanfront utopia. It's got beautiful beaches, history, well-kept lawns, a University, an old California Mission, excellent restaurants and shopping, and growth has been managed so tightly housing costs keep most normal human beings out of town except to visit. Every time I've been there (visiting), there's been a wonderful art show on the water.
There is also now a proposal to paint a light blue line around town to show sea level after the Greenland ice-sheet melts. I think this is a brave and smart move. But like most other decisions about global warming, there are valid concerns. For example, do property values go down on the seaward side of the blue line? Will it become a tourist attraction and is that good or bad? Will it be more expensive to remove than to apply?
I'm sure it will be a conversation piece. It looks to me like a vivid reminder of what we might lose if we stay complacent. A lot of beach and a lot of a major coastal highway appear to be on the seaward side. There are pictures here.
The line is not painted yet, and I don't know if it's going to be or not - Santa Barbara is still having a conversation. I hope they do paint it, and if they do, I'll probably try to go visit. After all, Santa Barbara is one of my favorite towns anyway.
I think I can take the train.

Lake Shasta

2007-08-05T20:55:00.000-07:00

We took a train trip from Seattle to San Louis Obispo last week. On the way, we passed by Lake Shasta. The bare reddish banks were so dry and so tall that boats looked tiny against them, and even though the lake still holds a lot of water, it looks lower than I've ever seen it. So I went out to see what other people thought once I got back to civilization and connectivity. According to this article, it's the lowest it's been in 13 years.
Now, I know it's not a given that's climate change is the main cause. But many of the commenters on the article seemed to think so. I also learned an interesting little side-note - dams emit a bunch of methane, which also a dangerous greenhouse gas.
Anyway - I really like the lake and hope it doesn't become a new normal.
Otherwise, things looked pretty healthy from a train window passing by at 50 miles an hour. That's a good thing. When you live in a busy suburb of a busy city, and spend a bunch of time flying and driving to other busy suburbs of busy cities, you forget how much open country there is. The Coast Starlight passed through a lot of very pretty land with few people. It all looked worth protecting.

Hawaii: Asking about Global Warming

2007-07-12T08:16:00.001-07:00

I just got back from the island of Maui, in Hawaii. We enjoyed perfect weather – cool all morning because of the fabulous trade winds that blow fine mist and the scent of the sea and tropical flowers into obscure corners of the island. There were two fires in the week and a half we were there, which snarled traffic and blackened large sections of hills. Meanwhile, while we basked in cooling winds and 85 degree highs (still slightly brutal to Seattleites), the home front has had warmer and nastier days. We’ve heard on the news that major cities have been opening “cooling shelters.” This is new vocabulary for Seattleites, and I’m hopeful we won’t have to get used to it.
When I travel, I often like to ask local people about the signs of global warming. Not always scientists, but normal people, too. When my parents and I took a hiking day, we asked about the fires at the nature center on the way up to Iao point. We heard that Maui was having a drought which had already lasted over two years. Days later, I was out accompanying Katie, my partner’s ten-year-old, on a parasail ride. I asked the guys that drove the boat what signs of global warming they saw in Hawaii. They said the weather had been warm a few years, but who can tell if that’s global warming? They truly didn’t seem too concerned. Except one of them looked over just after he two people up into the clear blue sky strapped to a bright gold and green parasail. “But the one thing they say might happen to us is we could lose the trade winds.” He did look a bit afraid at that. Me too. The winds were what made Hawaii habitable, at least for us.

Resource Wars: Here Already?

2007-06-24T22:30:00.000-07:00

I read a very scary article in the Seattle times on Friday, June 22nd, titled Experts warn Darfur is "an early warning" of climate change's effects, by ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU. I actually had to let it sink in before I was ready to post about it.

There are a lot of potential bad feedback mechanisms related to global warming. Hopefully at least some of them are overblown products of the doomsday-mad. But others seem likely. For example, sunlight melts ice in the ocean. The more ice melts, the more sun hits the water (instead of being reflected away by ice) and the warmer the water, the more the ice melts. Pretty simple, huh?

This article talks about Darfur. It suggests a few things, but some of the basic logic goes something like: The conflict started at least partly as a result of drought, which made water and wood and other necessities hard to get (this is a resource war). The conflict itself requires more resources than peaceful living, thus stripping the area even more. The more the scarce resources are used up, the less resilient the ecosystem. As the area gets hotter and drier (assuming that is the affect of climate change there), then the conflict gets worse.

And I'm using nice words like "conflict" instead of more appropriate ones like "genocide."

So we have a resource war in Iraq. We also have a resource war in Darfur. What's next? And is this same logic eventually going to apply to, say, downtown Phoenix? Let's hope that thought is one for the doomsday-mad.

But while we wait to find out, maybe we should closely at the affects of climate change on resources and make part of our mitigation plans to shift water and food and shelter where its needed.

A nice travel and carbon entry at Futurist.com

2007-06-22T18:54:00.001-07:00

I want to point out a blog entry over at Futurist.com, where a new member of our team there, Kanna Hudson, did a nice job discussing summer travel choices and global warming.

And speaking of summer travel and global warming, I just did a day-trip to Canada on the train. Generally, it worked well. It was more expensive than driving ($80 for tickets and $20 to park; the drive would have been about $60) unless you start counting all the wear and tear on the car and the like. Maybe by then the train was about the same. The whole trip took more overall travel time, but I got some of it back: I read and napped and answered email.

Both trains left on time. The only downside was they arrived a their respective stations on time, but then it was almost an hour to actually get off the train and through customs in Vancouver, B.C., and a half hour to get off the train in Seattle for no apparent reason. Customs coming south was pretty quick.

An Interview with Kim Stanley Robinson

2007-05-25T07:00:00.000-07:00

I've recommended Kim Stanley Robinson's trilogy about climate change (which begins with Forty Signs of Rain) for some time now. He graciously agreed to do an interview for me, which is posted at Futurist.com. He's got some thoughtful answers, and I highly recommend a visit to read them.

Through the Eyes of a Child

2007-05-08T06:42:00.000-07:00

We pulled a tree out of the front yard last Sunday. It was a little tree - a cypress that we'd moved from one place to another when we bought the house, and which was getting too big in the new place, too. A kind of normal gardening chore during spring clean-up. We were already researching what kind of bush we might replace it with.

Well, just as I was pulling the tree out of the ground, our other car drove up, including the ten-year-old, who caught me in the act. She wailed. I immediately became a murderer. Silly me, I suggested that it was like weeding, which we all do all the time. Little did I know that a tree is, on no case, a weed (I recall weeding my farm of alders to keep pasture and to leave room for young cedars when I lived a more rural life).

Anyway, I was in trouble for the rest of the evening. Not only did I pull the tree out but I also lopped it into pieces small enough to put into the recycle bin and I didn't do any kind of ceremony to lament its passing.

But it made me remember one night in California, where I grew up, when I sat up by a favorite stand of eucalyptus trees and watched the cars go by on the interstate below. This was when the orange groves were being yielded to housing tracts at the rate of a few acres a day and drives down familiar roads lined with unfamiliar sights happened regularly. I was sitting under the eucalyptus, breathing in their sandy scent, crying for the orange groves.

Maybe we should all feel the Earth the way kids do. I know I haven't cried for trees in a long time. Maybe it's time I tried that again. After all, when I print a ream of pretty, glossy, unrecycled paper, I'm using the life of a tree.

The Seattle Times Challenge Continues: Our Report

2007-05-01T06:44:00.000-07:00

The Seattle Times Climate Challenge continues...an encouragement for all of Puget Sound to do better. Popular columnist Nicole Brodeur reported out today. She's starting where we started - way too much carbon usage.
We're still there. I'd have to say we're energy pigs. We own two cars and drive them both most days. We travel. We have more computers than people and tons of devices.
We're changing, but slowly.
Things we've done across the last year include taking the bus to work at least once a week every week we can (we often have to go to more than one place across a work day), switching to an environmentally friendly dry-cleaner, installing fluorescent bulbs in some lights, buying terrapasses to offset airline travel, and trying to plan trips to reduce driving. We bought new energy efficient windows (we needed windows anyway). We did do a few things for Earth Day, too. We signed up for the green power program at PSE which lets us pay more for power and supports PSE as they buy green power or invest in building green power plants (kind of like a more focused terrapass). We bought a new washer and dryer and they coincidentally got delivered on Earth Day. We chose the Whirlpool Duet, and then had to paint the laundry room since an empty room demands paint. We picked an eco friendly paint from Benjamin Moore. $56 a gallon.
We've been doing good. But not good enough.
The paint is symbolic for our choices (a gallon of bad-for-the-world paint would be half that price or less). We've been throwing money at the problem. That's good , and something we can do to a limited extent, although we've got to finish paying for the windows before we do anything else big. It sort of feels like middle-class reaction.
We might have to actually do something harder soon to keep getting better.

Happy Earth Day

2007-04-22T09:29:00.000-07:00

Hey mom! It’s spring, and really pretty outside. Thanks for the flowering cherry trees I can see outside my window, and the tender little vine maples with the slenderest of new leaves just now uncurling from wherever they slept the winter away. Thanks for my dogs barking in the backyard, running and playing and wagging their tails. Thanks for the bright and unlikely-to-actually-rain-today clouds of a Northwest spring.
Thanks for my friends and my family and the art on my wall. It’s all of a piece, and if I can just stay in the moment I can see that.
Oh...and thanks for the bring purple tulips and the fifteen colors of green in a single tree outside.
P.S. Thanks for the beam of sunshine.

Seared Ground

2007-04-19T17:19:00.000-07:00

I'm in Lake Chelan, Washington, at a business meeting. Through a variety of odd linkages, that resulted in my visiting with two cowboy poets in the bar last night. They're real cowboys, the kind of men that lead strings of horses and mules up into the roadless North Cascades.

I asked them about global warming and climate change. First, they didn't question it at all. These are men that know the land and the trees and the snow pack and the migration of animals like I know stop signs and walking trails and urban dog parks.

So I asked them, "All right, what's the biggest danger for you? What do you see up there in the wild?"

They worried most about fire. There are a bark-beetle killed trees (bark-beetle habitat is changing - I think spruce worms is the other term I've heard) which they say will burn like torches. Combine that with the way the forest has been managed for people instead of for the sake of the forest itself; we have too much underbrush, too many years fire hasn't neatly scored out the deadfall. They said the fires are so hot now they sterilize the ground. They told me a tale of a government-sponsored program to truck in straw - bales and bales and bales of pale-yellow straw - and use helicopters to spread it across the seared earth in hopes that it will slow erosion and decompose enough to allow grass to grow again in a few years. They said that without the straw, all of the places touched by the too-hot fire wouldn't grow anything for a decade or more.

Seattle Times Challenges us to Reduce Carbon Footprint

2007-04-15T07:26:00.000-07:00

With Earth Day coming, the Seattle Times spent a lot of expensive Sunday paper ink talking about how to reduce the average family's carbon footprint. Kudos to them. Read the online article, or better yet, buy a copy of the paper which has a great colored pull-out on the topic.

Paving Paradise

2007-04-14T20:22:00.000-07:00

I didn't make it out to any of the Step it Up protests today, but I did get out for an after-dinner walk with the dog. We did some cloud-watching as the evening burnished the bottoms of the clouds with gold and yet still lit the very tops brilliant white.

During dinner, we had been talking with a friend of ours who wants to be a Red Cross worker after she retires, and is already looking into how to get the right training. It seems like a good idea: climate change almost certainly means climate chaos (after all, why should the climate take to change any better than we do?). I mean, really. Hailstones as big as fists landed in Dallas and late spring snow fell all across the southern plains this week, followed by violent thunderstorms.

But back to cloud watching. I grew up in the 60's and 70's, and I like a lot of that music. I have what I call a "green mix" on my ipod that I put together for an event about ecologically sound choices. So by pure coincidence, I ended up walking across a wide swath of wetland/open space that Nintendo has posted permits to build on while listening to Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi" - you know, the one about paving paradise with parking lots. I was singing it, too, really loudly, and Nixie, our golden retriever, was walking in front of me with her tail wagging to the beat. A few songs later, back on the main street, John Denver crooned through "Rocky Mountain High."

These songs were seeds of change.

We've been working on these same issues for forty years. We've made a little progress.

The last song in my Mix is "Imagine" by John Lennon. If you know those lyrics, that's what we need to do now.

Step it Up Seattle

2007-04-10T21:32:00.001-07:00

There is a large linked global warming event coming on April 14th (This Saturday). Called Step it Up, the idea is to gather and promote actions to mitigate global warming. Sort of green protests if you will. Find one near you at www.stepitup2007.org. I'm quite heartened to see there are a LOT of events planned for the Pacific Northwest. In fact, the map looks a lot like the red/blue voting map, only for this saturday, the coasts are bright green and the interirior is dotted with green, mostly in the major cities.

I may have to miss, but I hope that these are well attended.

More Web Resources

2007-03-21T20:19:00.000-07:00

I came across a great web resource the other day -- idealbite.com. You can sign up to have tips emailed to you daily. The idea behind it seems to be that for many of us, if we just knew what to do, we'd do it. I did sign up, and the emails I've gotten for three days so far now have been useful reminders, and I learned a few new things. Worth the time. Hasn't resulted in any excess spam so far. I like it!

And for a more complex site you can get to a lot of research documents from, try climate solutions.

I also got an email from a fellow that's just starting to do a wiki about sustainable goals. It's pretty empty right now - think of it as a clean slate you can go help him write on! The url is www.sgoals.net.

Little Mirrors

2007-03-17T12:19:00.000-07:00

There is an article running around the web and in the papers with a bunch of far-out scientific ideas for global warming mitigation...adding iron to the sea, making artificial trees, having a man-made volcano. One of these ideas, out of the University of Arizona, is called a space-launched solar umbrella and is made up of a bunch of mirrors that reflect some of the sunlight away from the earth.
The first science fiction story I published was a collaboration with the very brilliant Larry Niven called "Ice and Mirrors." In that story, published in Asimov's Science Fiction in February 2001, Larry and I have evil aliens use the same exact device to freeze a planet. The idea for the mirrors was Larry's (all this was shortly after Kim Stanley Robinson wrote his Red/Green/Blue Mars series that had a single big mirror called a "soletta" warming Mars and so the idea may have kind of come from that - I really don't remember).
It feels kind of like Star Trek communicators and cell phones....maybe we'll get weather control from space using little mirrors. A great example of the way science and science fiction play well with each other.

A Night Walk with Frogs

2007-03-11T08:48:00.000-07:00

I walked up to the local 7-11 last night. It was, sort of, raining. We have a particular kind of soft rain in the northwest that seems like tiny drops just hanging like a thin curtain in the air. Not falling, just making sure everything is properly wet. This walk is along 148th street, four lanes with turn-outs and traffic lights, past the entrance to Microsoft's Red-West campus, past a municipal golf course, and a large wetland Nintendo keeps claiming they'll build on. In simpler terms, it's a big, busy concrete street with a lot of wet stuff on either side, and wet stuff hanging in the air.
There was a chorus playing almost the whole way. An uncountable number of frogs reveling in the warming wet air and singing in the dark. Living with the concrete and the cars and singing. I realize this is anthropomorphizing, but they sounded quite happy.
This is what we risk. The happiness of frogs. They are a bit of a bellwether species, and while I can't see the poor thin polar bears, I can hear the frogs.
I keep seeing the words mass extinction associated with global warming, and I suspect it's because the change is too fast. Evolution likes change, just not change moving at the speed of a big SUV barrelling down 148th, threatening the frogs.
I think I'll try to listed to the frogs as often as possible this year.

Kim Stanley Robinson

2007-03-10T16:33:00.000-08:00

I'm reading the next book in Kim Stanley Robinson's series on climate change, SIXTY DAYS AND COUNTING. He's really very, very good. This is a series of fiction books that outlines a possible scenario for climate change. The scary part is that the books talks about many of the things brought up today in a CNN article about the affects of climate change. I know KSR does his homework - I read his series about terraforming Mars and then did a bunch of actual research on terraforming to prepare for writing BUILDING HARLEQUIN'S MOON with Larry Niven. KSR had clearly used the same base research we found (a book by Martin Fogg and a bunch of articles by various people). So it didn't surprise me to find that his science fiction is mimicking the real world rather well.
I highly recommend the series. In fact, I highly recommend that you either read KSR's whole trilogy or you read the CNN article and think about it hard, or you do both. :)

Earthweek: Australia Thinking like Terraformers

2007-03-02T07:13:00.000-08:00

This week's Earthweek has a little blurb mentioning that Australia is trying to create an "escape corridor," or a place where animals can migrate to different habitats freely without having to pass through major cities.
The science fiction writer in me kinda likes that idea. When we write about terraforming (changing a planet to make it more habitable) we often consider that humans will have a major role in gardening new species/helping earth species adapt.
Perhaps we will need to also take a hand in helping species survive the current warming period.

I had to quote this

2007-02-28T07:23:00.000-08:00

From an article by Robert Lee Holtz, for the Los Angeles Times and also printed in today's Seattle Times:
"Based on two years of study, the scientists called for dramatic actions ranging from carbon taxes and a ban on conventional coal-fired plants to an end to all beachfront construction worldwide."

It's the last few words that king of emphasize yesterday's post.

Vacations and Sea Level Rise

2007-02-26T21:56:00.000-08:00

First, sorry for the long time between posts. I was vacationing...and as a side note, some of that time was in southeastern Arizona. In one of the hotels we stayed in (The Skywatcher's Inn, or maybe The Astronomer's Inn, not sure which of the two is current, but it's a fabulous funky place with real astronomy gear and rent-an-astronomers to show you how to use it), there was only one trash can, and a sign above that said something like "Throw everything here. The town of Benson doesn't have a recycling program." A good reminder that we one the progressive coastlines in our blue states forget that some of rural America might as well be in the fifties. Sigh. But it was a nice vacation, and I didn't have to think about sea level rise much in the middle of the high desert. If it ever gets that high, we're pretty much doomed to building arks and praying anyway. I wonder if the story of Noah is from a previous global warming period?

Anyway, there was an AP article out yesterday that talked about England abandoning some coastline in Happisburgh. The article says "the government has decided that with the expected rise in sea levels that experts attribute to global warming, some vulnerable coastal areas are no longer worth defending." It's worth reading. There will be American coastlines where the same logic holds true.

I've noticed a lot of "Humans didn't really cause this" talk lately

2007-02-12T20:35:00.000-08:00

A lot of the lists that I participate in are populated by pretty smart futuristic people. They are natural skeptics. One bit that I read lately suggests that global warming is more related to the activity of the sun than than to humans. Apparently, this is based on a scientific study that was hard to get published because of it is not politically correct.

That led me to two reactions.

First, no valid research should be suppressed because it's not "politically correct." That's what happened to Galileo. Proof that while our tools and problems and even our hopes change, basic human nature is a tougher nut to crack. So if valid research is being suppressed for lack of political correctness I feel sad about that (yes, I know the Bush Administration did the same thing - but my reaction there is more like anger and futility...how did we as a people elect someone who suppresses research that doesn't support a particular view, and a largely religious one at that?).

All right, that rant aside, the second reaction is more like "If true, so what?" We're still learning about the chaotic thing we call climate and weather , and there is probably no single cause or capital "T" truth about the changes (and plenty of evidence that there are changes). There are so many reasons that we should live lighter on the planet, including looking for clean energy, that I can't even begin to list them. We need to get past arguments about cause and work on pretty much everything we know is better - and there's a lot of that. Conservation. Wind and solar energy. Recycling. Health. So on to the work....

Also, I'm working with a few people from my department to host a "tips for saving energy" lunch event. We're open to ideas from out there.....

Something we can do something about

2007-02-04T09:57:00.000-08:00

We need to let our lawmakers know that we care passionately about global warming. Wherever we are. According to the Seattle Times, those of us living in Washington State are behind both Oregon and California. This would be a nice place for us to get into friendly competition. We need to let our legislators at all levels know we want actual, meaningful, painful action on climate change. We may not have the lobby money, but we have the ability to vote people out of office.

I also noticed a political cartoon somewhere (sorry I can't recall where) poking fun at the oil companies, basically saying that "Now that we have figured out how to make money from global warming, we're at the table." Well, duh. Whether we like it or not, this is a largely capitalist society. And while we all need to make changes, urge changes, lobby for changes, accept changes, it's the largest of our global corporations that are in the best fiscal position to make changes. After all, the Federal government didn't make what Exxon did last year.

Lets do three things:

Put in place the kind of regulation that punishes corporations for the "business as usual" that we don't want. And it's time to be somewhat draconian about it.
Put into place some real incentives for businesses and consumers. We shouldn't be as specific there: we want to reward creativity. The government (us and our taxes) can help fund research directly, and what we should incentivize for both consumers and corporations is actual action, before we run completely out of time.
Let the price of oil go up. The higher it goes, the more behavior will change. Yes, it will be hard on some people. But it will be harder to deal with runaway climate change.

Daylight savings time changes may be good for the planet

2007-02-01T21:55:00.000-08:00

It hasn't been remarked on much in the media, but this year there are daylight savings time changes going into place in both the US and Britain. For us in the US, we'll be switching to DST earlier, and staying on it later. In fact, it's causing quite a bit of work for those of us in information technology: it's a bit like a mini Y2K as far as needing to check all of our systems so our calendars and timestamps and the like works. Although the consequences are not as bad as failing at Y2K might have been.
I know I'll like having more light in the evenings earlier. Living in the Pacific Northwest in the US, it's just now becoming light when we get off work. And that's the idea - it will be light longer sooner, and we may use less electricity to light up dark evenings. That seems to be the logic in the UK as well, where if I read a recent article right, they're going to switch back an hour all year.
No one knows how much it will save yet, and projections vary, but they are all positive.
I know the news is busy talking about the international report on global warming that is due (where the amount of it they're attributing to us humans is being increased, but by less than recommended due to China), but this is better than a report. It's action. And action is what we need.

Two good articles, and President Bush's plan

2007-01-28T11:02:00.000-08:00

There is early talk on the AP wire about the report to be issued next week in Paris. In the article, Experts: Latest climate report too rosy, By SETH BORENSTEIN, there is discussion about sea level rises that, at the low end, start at five inches. At the high end, 55 inches. Neither of these numbers in insignificant. And others are claiming we should be thinking in feet.

There was also a great article on global warming in the Seattle Times print edition that I finally found online at the PI. Deniers: Join, and help, the warming world, by Johann Hari is an excellent rebuttal of any leftover arguments about global warming not really happening.

I am no fan of President Bush, who's history on this topic has been reprehensible. And his comments in the state of the union speech don't go far enough. I can, in fact, only imagine the huge amounts of leverage that must have been placed on him to get him to even say the words "climate change." But that aside, his plan wasn't as bad as I feared based on what I heard in the early media reports. Let's get behind him. At least there are steps. Not big enough, not enough, but steps that actually go in the right direction are damned rare from this administration. Lets walk on them.

OK Time to Act on Global Warming

2007-01-24T18:28:00.000-08:00

Early this week I came accross a story in the Contra Costa Times which noted that at the base of the Golden Gate Bridge there is a tidal gage. And that gage shows the ocean level is 7.5 inches higher than in 1900. Sounds like quite a lot to me.

Look, the data are in. Individual actions to combate warming are called for, they are great, and they are small. Only very large actions will have very great effects.

The Carbon Mitigation Initiative at Princeton lays out 12 different things than can and should be done. Here are some of them:

Increase fuel economy of 2 billion cars from 30-mpg to 60-mpg by 2050.
Decrease driving for 2 billion 30-mpg cars in half, through mass transit, urban design for walking and biking, telecommuting, and other measures.
Develop zero-emission vehicles including plug-in hybrids and all-electric vehicles powered by renewable energy.
Increase efficiency of new appliances and buildings to achieve zero-carbon emissions, resulting in 25% total reduction by 2050.
Ramp up wind power, (cost competitive now) to add 3 million 1-megawatt windmills globally, 75 times current capacity.
Add 3000 gigawatts of peak solar photovoltaic, 1000 times current capacity.
No new net coal power plants – for each new plant built improve efficiency from 32 to 60%, require CO2 sequestration, and take one old plant off-line.

Now we are talking. Will we do it?

On Carbon Caps and Christmas Lights

2007-01-22T19:11:00.000-08:00

Well, there is some buzz in today's media that the President will announce some new support for global warming - carbon trading. From what I understand (and there are a few conflicting news items out there), non-polluting industries will get to sell their good behavior to industries that want to keep behaving badly. It's kind of like buying consumer carbon offsets, which is not nearly as good as actually reducing personal carbon footprints. At least in consumer carbon offset purchases (like Terrapass), the money spent for the carbon offset goes directly into green energy (in most cases). They are part of my portfolio of tricks to get my net consumption down. But the way Mr. Bush's program was explained via radio today, it would be like letting someone who litters keep littering as long as they paid off someone who wasn't going to litter anyway.

I hope I just don't get it.

And the Christmas lights? They're like a song in the dark wet cold of the Northwest winter. But I have this sneaky feeling it's going to become very uncool to string thousands of extra lights up for a month every year. I might have to go into mourning.

A bad news, good news day

2007-01-20T08:29:00.000-08:00

An AP article on McDonald's opening a drive-in in China is headlined "New Partnership in China link Big Macs and big oil. " Apparently McDonald's has a deal that lets them open restaurants near gas stations. Not exactly forward progress. According to the article, China is now the world's second largest market for cars. That's the bad news. American companies failing to change to their business models to support even their own long-term health. Not new, but a behavior worth changing.

The Seattle Times also reprinted an article from the Wall Street Journal, "World demand for oil drops a bit," by Bhushan Bahree. I can't seem to get a link to it online to give you, but a key quote is "For the first time in years, the developed world is burning less of it (oil)." Nice. Now, global demand still grew, largely because of growth in China and the Middle East. But it's a good indicator. The article cites the following statistics: 2006 global oil demand increase .9 percent. 2005 global oil demand increase 1.5 percent. 2004 global oil demand 3.9 percent.

We used to boycott McDonalds over slash and burn forest destruction. Maybe it's time to boycott them for other ways of not being green enough. They don't seem to be learning their lessons very well.

I've also noticed a lot more advertising and more frequent articles about green building. In new housing, being green seems to be as attractive as almost everything except location. That's another good sign.

The cost of figuring it all out

2007-01-18T07:00:00.000-08:00

Our city (Kirkland, WA) signed onto the Mayor's initiative to meet the Kyoto protocol - sort of a "local cities do things in spite of the feds" movement. We did this quite a while ago: Kirkland is basically a very green, conservation-oriented city. There was quite a discussion about it yesterday in Exec staff, bringing everybody up to date on what is being done for global warming, or in some cases, just better living. First, I'm quite proud to be part of a city that's doing as much as we are. There's even a groundswell of staff who aren't directly involved in these efforts wanting to participate.

One interesting part is the cost associated with it. Some things will pay for themselves, at least over time (think hybrid cars we've added to our fleet). Some efforts may have an immediate payoff (less energy use means lower bills). But there's a cost to measuring our carbon footprint so we can tell if we're reducing it enough. It's taking a lot of staff time and effort. Kyoto was so long ago, we actually can't accurately measure our 1990 carbon footprint. Public outreach and education will take staff time and money. We need to figure out how to fund or find a full-time coordinator. And people are really tough to add to cities in this post-Tim Eyeman age when our stable sources of income like property tax increase at less than inflation every year.

It's important to figure out, and since people are excited about helping, there's a lot of energy around figuring it out. But it's not going to be easy to fund in the short term. Of course, ignoring it would be more expensive.

Report on Global Warming costs in the PI

2007-01-13T15:29:00.000-08:00

A news story from the Seattle PI on the a report detailing the costs of Global Warming to Washington State. There was also an article in the Seattle Times and it has shown up on other global warming related sites.

I'm glad to see it getting done. It does address some of the difficult challenges like sea-level rise. I hope that we see more and continued studies of this type. It needs to done, even though I'm sure it's not right. We don't know enough to get these things right, yet. After all, we've had the wettest and snowiest winter in the 13 years I've been here so far, which has completely gone against predictions (which were for a dry and warm winter, typical for El Nino conditions for us). Yet my partner's family in Kansas has seen a balmy winter and has tulips coming up already.

It also seems to me that we've had more interesting weather almost everywhere. The repeated snowstorms in Colorado, our wettest month ever on record (November, 2006), the ice storm that's sweeping the Midwest today. If anyone can point me to any statistics on this, I'd be interested. Are there really more rare weather events and record highs and lows this year than usual, or is it a function of the news that we just know about more?

As I write this, a day that was supposed to see "snow flurries" has had steadily falling snow for four hours. It's quite breathtakingly beautiful, and rare for us. And last summer was long, dry and hot. A set of seasons of extremes.

Inconvenient Truth Inconvenient in Federal Way, WA

2007-01-12T07:10:00.000-08:00

The school district in Federal Way has banned showing Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth unless an opposing viewpoint is shown at the same time.

A few things come to mind:

My initial reaction is, What? Since when are we the science-poor and uneducated Bible-belt? I can't even believe we would do that. One of the quotes in the article is "Condoms don't belong in school, and neither does Al Gore. He's not a schoolteacher," said Frosty Hardison, a parent of seven who doesn't want the film shown at all.
"The information that's being presented is a very cockeyed view of what the truth is," Hardison told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. "The Bible says that in the end times everything will burn up, but that perspective isn't in the DVD." Yow! Under that logic, does science belong in school? An Inconvenient Truth quotes real research rather well.

My second reaction was - What? Do our students believe everything they hear? (Another point the AP article makes is that parent's claimed their kids were taking the movie as truth). Didn't anyone bother to teach them critical thinking. Can't kids see the film and decide for themselves?

The third thought was And maybe it is true. Then what? Pretty inconvenient for your kids to believe something you don't. They might turn the lights out from time to time or suggest that you walk somewhere. Where is the danger in acting to reduce greenhouse gasses? What horrid thing happens?

Global Warming in the Snow

2007-01-10T22:52:00.000-08:00

It's cold here in the Northwest. We've had a day of snow and snarly commutes. So far, this winter has been colder and snowier than any I remember in the thirteen years I've been here. But global warming still came up a lot.
I had an early morning business meeting, and an effort the City of Kirkland is one community player in (among many) came up - Sustainable September. We're going to work on having events and public information and business-directed talks, etc. in September on sustainability. I kind of hope we try for carbon neutrality as well (note that I just bought plane tickets and we bought the $5.99 Terrapass carbon offset for each of us). Maybe the whole city could be encouraged to be carbon neutral for the month. Yeah, a lot would have to be through things like Terrapass that don't quite get us to use less, but some wouldn't be. As a community, we could contribute by both reducing energy consumption and by investing in green energy through offset programs.
We talked about our sustainability lunches at work.
And of course, the big news in the paper today was that this was the warmest year on record for the United States.
And still the roads were so snowy I took the bus home and we walked out in the snow with the dogs, wearing our ski gear.
It's a strange world.

British Predictions, and a Few Thoughts

2007-01-05T07:30:00.000-08:00

Sometimes it feels like I'm parroting whatever is in the news (which, today, is British predictions about global warming that suggest 2007 will be the warmest year on record), but when I flip back, it's gives me a sort of order that news is coming to my attention and what I started out wanting, which was a way to record all the ways climate change is affecting my life.

I'm also beginning to think it's really more about climate change than about global warming. The week's Earthweek highlights some killing cold temperatures. It's been colder than expected here, and warmer than expected in New England. So maybe the overall trend is up, but what happens in a particular area is not so clear. Note a ton of earthquake activity, too. I wonder is earthquake activity is changed by temperature? I would think it has to be, but how?

I have a blog entry posted at futurist.com about the need for businesses to plan for global warming. One thing I caution people about is infrastructure planning - and I suggest people don't build expensive things which they hope will have a long life near sea-level near coasts. One comment on that article included the following sentence "I’m wondering if we should sell our home + move to higher ground, but when big companies are building all around me, I’m wondering if that means their engineers have figured out a solution like dikes or something?"

Well, first, ask. Maybe people are being forward-thinking. But I'd bet that's a no. In fact, I bet you'd still get laughed at. We're so used to the idea that seafront property is valuable and good that the idea of a radical shift in that is just hard to take. Humans change slowly.

Some News and Some New Year Wishes

2007-01-04T07:23:00.000-08:00

Bits in news lately are that the East Coast has had a very warm winter while we've had a stormy (although not particularly cold) one. Retail was affected by the weather - fewer people bought cold-weather clothes, for example. In some areas of the country, it didn't feel like Christmas. This is not as superficial as it may sound - we need a strong economy to fuel the changes we need to make.

I guess I have three New Year's wishes worth mentioning (but if you are reading this, feel free to post some more).

1) More of us make more small changes. The US is making progress - our energy consumption rise per capita was less than other industrialized nations. That doesn't mean we are going the right direction yet, but if we can all make changes, they'll add up.

2) A serious breakthrough in energy happens. Lots of work going on in this area - I'm starting to research a more in-depth article. This is at least plausible. We need a breakthrough that radically enhances an existing technology or produces a new one that does not need an extensive delivery system and is easily adoptable by consumers. It's probably too much to hope such a thing will be affordable for all as well this year, but many middle-class and up consumers would switch to something greener even if it cost more.

3) We need a space breakthrough. Bezos' recent flight and Space Ship One are baby steps. We are a curious and adventuresome race and we need to be able to get away. Doesn't mean I want us to get away and leave a wrecked hulk of a planet behind, but it's time to quit holding all of our future in a single environment threatened by us, but also by asteroids and other stuff. I know this one is pretty tangential to global warming, but if we don't solve the climate change problem, or the tipping point is past, we know the Earth has frozen completely before. Which doesn't leave much room for the idea that good-sized pockets of civilization will carry the torch until thing stabilize.

Ice Shelf Separates

2006-12-30T19:56:00.000-08:00

A large part of the Canadian ice shelf has separated from the mainland, but remained trapped in offshore ice. Apparently, it splintered away to become an ice island last August, but one fear is that it will float into oil fields. I had always imagined some threats from this kind of event, such as the ice melting and making sea level rise. The idea of the danger presented to both shipping lanes and to fixed oil platforms had not crossed my mind directly. I don't think such things are easy to control, and truly hope we don't add oil spills and further contamination of the sea to the damage we're doing it by changing the climate. The sea is already reported as sick, and it doesn't need new ailments added.

Three Bears

2006-12-29T07:01:00.000-08:00

Or at least, three global warming bits about bears.

Earthweek noted the potential listing of the polar bears. It also noted that bears in Spain have "stopped hibernating in the country's northern mountains in what may be one of the strongest signals yet of how much climate change is affecting the natural world."

Discovery Channel article on bears being sleepless in Spain

That's two. The third is also the polar bears - a good editorial from the Seattle Times that basically says it took threats to a big icon like the polar bear to get movement out of the Bush administration.

Chimeras

2006-12-28T19:20:00.000-08:00

The global warming conversation sometimes pursues chimeras (illusions, or mental fabrications). I came across one today on an email list I subscribe to (which actually has nothing directly to do with global warming). At any rate, one of the contributors was mentioning hailstones in Armidale, Australia as a sign of global warming. Turns out they are arther common, and seem to have a long history.

Noise in the conversation.

There is a lot more signal than noise, more real information than false, by far. At least as far as I can tell. But fear and fascination are likely to make more chimeras in the conversation.

Polar Bears

2006-12-27T07:20:00.000-08:00

The front page of today's paper suggests the US may be ready to list Polar Bears as an endangered species, and cite global warming as the cause.

Talk about a potential poster child for change.

Reading between the lines, it sounds like there has been a lot of pressure from a lot of people to get this to happen. I know how much money, energy, and actual change has happened has a result of salmon being listed. Nope - not enough - yet. But so much more than if they hadn't been....

Listing the polar bears - a top predator - and blaming global warming? Think about it.

There's bound to be a fight about the listing. Energy companies aren't likely to applaud. But people will want to save polar bears. Lets make sure they get listed.

It may be too late for the bears to win (define winning as getting out the other side and getting de-listed - the Bald Eagle won). Hopefully not.

An old article about this in National Geographic

Today's Seattle Times article

UN Works page about polar bears

Personal Changes

2006-12-18T07:13:00.000-08:00

There was an article in yesterday's Seattle Times Pacific Northwest Magazine about the family that is trying to be carless in Seattle. I'm impressed: that's tough here. It shows a commitment to real change.

At the core, this is a design issue. In the last few years, I have been in three cities where cars are pretty much more trouble than they are worth: London, New York, and Paris. They are denser than Seattle. They have much better public transportation systems than we do. More and more cities are starting to design for multi-modal and more public/shared transportation. We should consider accelerating those efforts.

I promised I'd report back on two of our family efforts: dry cleaning and windows. The new eco-friendly dry cleaner in turning out to be cheaper and the clothes softer. I don't feel like I'm wearing poison. They're slower, so I had to go get a few more pairs of work pants or cancel out my good by making more frequent trips, but I'm glad we did it. Easy.

I don't know how to tell if the windows really do a better job yet. The house was really cold without power and since we have no window coverings up yet, my guess is that it was not particularly a good thing to have brand-new windows (we would have closed the drapes on the other ones). But they are beautiful and once we get them covered, I think they'll be a lot better.

Fragility and Preparedness

2006-12-17T16:11:00.000-08:00

After just emerging from three days without power due to a windstorm in Washington, State, two things stand out.

One is how fragile the infrastructure of our civilization actually is. We mostly stuck together through this one, neighbors helping neighbors and not many deaths from cold, even with one million houses out of power at the height of the problem here. Sporadic and minor civil unrest did occur, mostly fights at the few gas stations that were open. But by the end of three days we were tired of it, and while we well prepared and basically fine our tempers were fraying a bit at the edges. I think it might have gotten tough around here if the outages had lasted much longer (and many customers are still cold). City-dwellers are just not used to being without major portions of the infrastructure that keeps us going. If you think back to Katrina, there were spots of heroism, community, and unrest there, too. For at least a while, it looked like civilization frayed to breaking in New Orleans. We should acknowledge the fragility of our civilization, even though there is also much to celebrate in its -- and our -- resiliency. The severe weather patterns may not all be attributable to climate change, but climate change will include severe weather (from drought to heat to cold to storms). We need to understand it may take a Herculean effort to get through the effects of the next decade and maintain a civil society at all times.

Which brings me to the second thing: preparedness. We fared pretty well, and had what we needed (ground coffee, creamer, flashlights, radio, emergency candles, extra blankets, available food that didn't need to be refrigerated). But how many people in the Pacific Northwest were less prepared? I bet it was a bunch. Another Katrina lesson: have seven days worth of emergency supplies. Not three (the old guideline) but seven. Be able to drag your supplies into your house or your attic or put them into your car.

Let's acknowledge our fragile infrastructure and the effort required to be prepared to live without it.

A heartening conversation

2006-12-14T06:39:00.000-08:00

I was talking about global warming to one of my staff, Gillian Bozanic, who does our TV reporting for the city channel. She said something like, "I feel a little hopeful. This is a problem that transcends our differences - it's not about racism or gender or what country you're from. To solve this, we all have to work together, right?"

Nice.

Building Major Infrastructure? Plan well.

2006-12-11T06:20:00.000-08:00

There's a full page paid advertisement in today's paper about the Alaskan Way Viaduct (an aging elevated road that runs along Seattle's waterfront). The advertisement making the case against an elevated viaduct and for a tunnel. Think Big Dig, but is soft soil on the waterfront.

I agree with the main point: a big elevated road is a silly thing to have as the largest single features on our waterfront. If we can figure out how to get rid of it, there's views and economic development and just plain beauty to be had.

I do not think we should bury it under the waterfront. Sea level rise is almost inevitable. How much is not clear, but it wouldn't take much to stress Seattle. Has anyone done the engineering to determine how well the road would do if we buried it, and then sea level rose five feet? Or ten?

That kind of sea level rise is actually possible in the short term, although I'm still on the side that thinks it unlikely to happen in the next few years. But in our lifetimes? You bet. The current viaduct is over 50 years old. I doubt sea level will remain static between now and 2057.

Planning for other large engineering projects should take climate change into account. At least mitigate the more likely issues in advance. Pick a sea level to engineer around. Build to withstand weather extremes and more frequent storms. Make climate change part of the conversation.

Today's news: All about biodiesel

2006-12-10T21:13:00.000-08:00

Two interesting articles in the Seattle Times today. One suggests that an old scourge, prairie switch grass, might be a good fuel for biodiesel. Apparently switchgrass needs little in the way of fertilizer or insecticides, and it also bypasses some of the questions about corn's usefulness.

The business section has an article, Can Biodiesel Compete on Price. It supports my argument that higher gasoline prices will give alternative fuels more opportunity to get through the start-up phase and be able to make money. The article discusses a Seattle biodiesel startup, Imperium Renewables, in detail.

The largest users of biodiesel at this point appear to be fleets, largely government fleets. That's a good start.

I recall the CNG fuels (compressed natural gas) that we started using in local government years ago. We've now pretty much all phased out our CNG modified police cars and are adopting hybrids at this point. Unlike CNG and biodiesel, hybrids have no fuel distribution problem. Admittedly, the biodiesel distribution problem is much simpler than the CNG problem: CNG never made it to any even noticeable percentage of the consumer market since there were no corner gas stations for it. There are a few good things going for biodiesel: newer diesel cars and trucks can run on it and older ones can apparently be converted. Still, I can't use it without buying a new car, and I only recall seeing one station advertising it when I stopped for gas. I hope that rectifies itself, since like hybrids, biodiesel has a lot to recommend it. It can be produced domestically, it doesn't rely on a single sources of raw materials that can't be easily replaced, and it is cheaper to produce than oil has generally been to buy this year.

My belief? Biodiesel will be one part of the actual solution to getting us to switch to alternative fuels. Hard to tell how big a part yet, but enough to matter.

A fun way to get your global warming news

2006-12-08T06:22:00.000-08:00

An offering that came from a comment on this blog - a fun little newsfeed on global warming. Be patient - it takes a few moments to load.

Why Businesses Need to Plan for Global Warming Now

2006-12-07T21:32:00.000-08:00

I posted a blog entry at futurist.com entitled "Why Businesses Need to Plan for Global Warming Now."

Part of why I started this blog is to have a place to talk more about global warming, since Futurist.com, the futurist site that I work on in support of Glen Hiemstra, is really a generalist site. But as I was wearing my futurist hat and thinking about predictions for 2007, one that I'm sure of is that global warming will be the single most defining political issue except for the Iraq war. So we have a responsibility to talk about it there, even though we also get to play in technology and science and business and other topics.

Post 2 on Global Warming Talk

2006-12-06T21:42:00.000-08:00

First, a little contrast. I bought two tickets to the Seattle Arts and Lectures series this year - Steven King and Elizabeth Kolbert. The Steven King reading was packed, the patron section (the expensive seats) was at least twenty rows deep from the stage, and people had flown from all over the country to see him.
Seattle is the originating point for the US Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement. Many people consider us one of the most activist cities in the US on global warming. Yet the auditorium was not full, and some of the people there were sleeping. It appeared to have been assigned as homework. The patron section was about seven rows deep.

It's too bad that the talk didn't sell out.

One of the most interesting parts of Elizabeth's talk was not new, but was very well-framed. Climate change had many positive feedback loops built into it. That means that global warming begets more global warming. Take, for example, the melting of arctic ice. Ice reflects sunlight and water absorbs it. More ice means cooler temperatures and more water means warmer temperatures. As the ice melts, and there is less ice and more water, the temperatures rises. She gave a number of other examples.

One of her quotes that I like a lot was "People think global warming is just beginning because we are just beginning to see it." The point is that global warming is, in fact, beginning to have consequences that we can see all around us. But those consequences are the result of Co2 level increases that began years ago.

When she went back to update her book, Field Notes from a Catastrophe, in the one year that had passed from hardback to paperback publication, not one change was happening more slowly than predicted in the hardback, and many were happening faster.

I bought a copy of her book and I'll review it when I get it read. Since I'm in the middle of a research intensive novel, it make take a little while.

Post 1 on the Global Warming Talk

2006-12-05T22:25:00.000-08:00

I'll do something a little more substantive on this tomorrow night, but I had a powerful image come up early in the talk that seems worth relating.

Elizabeth was talking about the Greenland Ice Sheet. It's too warm, now, for the ice sheet to form. It has sustained itself because it is cold enough that it doesn't melt away, and enough new snow falls onto it to actually build some parts of it each year (although we are suffering net loss of ice there). But in today's climate, and the climate of the last ten thousand years,it would not get built.

Last week, it snowed on us in Washington, and we experienced very low temperatures for a few days after that. Well, snow is rare for us, and so we played in it and with it, and made snow sculptures and snowballs. Some of that snow we'd sculptured -- and turned into ice balls -- stayed with us for literally days after the untouched surface snow was melted and rained off.

But it's not there now.

The ice sheet holds so much water that if it all melts away, we could see a twenty-foot rise in sea level.

Suggested Talk

2006-12-04T20:38:00.000-08:00

Global warming actually hasn't been a topic in my life much for a few days, unless you want to count getting the house ready for new energy-efficient windows, or seeing copies of "An Inconvenient Truth" for sale at Costco. But tomorrow night, I'll be going to a talk on climate change at Benaroya Hall in Seattle. It's part of the Seattle Arts and Lectures tour and features Elizabeth Kolbert. I'm quite looking forward to it, and I noticed that it isn't sold out yet. So maybe I'll see some of you there.

Today's News on Global Warming

2006-12-01T07:01:00.000-08:00

In this week's Earthweek, Western Europe has had such a warm autumn that birds are not flying south, and frogs are not sleeping. I wonder if you could do a GlobalWarmingWeek? At least one of the items they pick for this seems to be related every week now.

This morning's Seattle Times has an editorial, Greenhouse innovation: bury the carbons in rock in support of carbon sequestration in rocks. A paragraph part way through the editorial says, "While many environmental groups support this technology, some worry its use will dampen the sense of urgency to reduce greenhouse gases."

This is the same argument I hear from people about carbon credits (investment in clean energy to offset personal or corporate creation of greenhouse gases). There is no single change to help with global warming. Its going to take personal changes on all of our parts, which are coming gradually. We are also going to have to apply scientific and technical tools that will help us transition from our carbon dependency. The best way to transition is going to be to both help the old industries that we still need for a robust economy --through solutions like this and through a strong mix of incentives and regulations -- and to actively foster investment in clean energy.

If there is a way to succeed in at least mitigating global warming, we need the resources to do it. And all of the tools available to us now, plus more that are in development. The Seattle Times editorial is a good one.

A side conversation, and a High Court conversation

2006-11-30T20:48:00.000-08:00

At a wrapping party at work today (wrapping boxes for people to put donations in for charity), someone mentioned global warming in context with the severe weather we've had up here this November (the wettest month, ever, on record in Washington State). One of the women helping said something like, "Global warming. It's too overwhelming. I can hardly even think about it."

The Supreme Court is considering a case that is very tightly linked to global warming. This will be an interesting look at how the new Court acts on a critical environmental issue, and it is expected that the vote will be close. The basic story is that this is an attempt to force the federal government to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant. I'm hoping that the Court finds that this is a good thing. Effective regulation might go a long way to helping reduce some of our major sources of global warming gas emissions.

Kudos for Public Transit

2006-11-29T06:07:00.000-08:00

We're iced in up here in the Pacific Northwest. That, and Christmas shopping traffic over the holiday weekend got me taking the bus.

I'm not usually a bus person - I believe in them, but my schedule always seems to make it a tough idea. I suspect I'm not the only one out there thinking this is a good idea, but hard to implement. Partly because I'm doing this (there are a lot of reasons to do this blog, and one of them is to remind myself about habit changes I can make), I decided I should try it out the day after Thanksgiving when I needed to go to downtown Seattle on Black Friday. I have a flex-pass provided by my work as part of the commuter program. I hadn't used it in over a year. So I looked up the bus routes and discovered that if I drove a mile to the park and ride, I could get an express bus to one block from my destination. It worked perfectly.

I'm a horrible snow and ice driver. So I tried again when I needed to get to work yesterday. There's a bus stop across the street from the entrance to my neighborhood. I used it. It takes the same route I would have taken driving, and about two minutes longer than driving on a clear-road day. That's faster than me driving on ice. The bus, and my return bus, were both on-time, safe, warm, and the bus driver was friendly so I got a greeting and a "Have a nice day" out of it.
I'm going to take the bus again today. Better, even though my schedule really does stop me some days when I have mid-day meetings all over town, I suspect I'll start sorting for days that I can take the bus instead of making it so hard in my head.

Let's hear it for the bus-drivers and this excellent use of our taxes. The only sad part was that the busses weren't very full.

More Species Change

2006-11-23T18:12:00.000-08:00

According to a CNN article, Global warming already killing species, we've already lost about 70 frog species. Frogs seem to be the canaries of our world. Remember a few years ago there were so many deformed frogs? The most interesting number I saw was that emperor penguins in the western Antarctic peninsula have gone from 200 breeding pairs to 9. It's a good, if disturbing article.

Sprinkler Controllers

2006-11-20T20:12:00.000-08:00

A small tip. We had our sprinklers winterized today, and the sprinkler company that did it asked if we'd like our old controller replaced next spring with a brand new one with a rain sensor. According to the company, the city will pay us back for the cost except labor.

I told them we'd take the deal. We've been doing all the sprinkling manualy (either literally with a hose or by turning on one bit and then another) so we could only water when its dry. Logical, if you live in the Pacific Northwest. I'll report how it goes next spring.

Global Warming and Water

2006-11-19T22:25:00.000-08:00

Right now, we're about drowning in the Pacific Northwest. We already have the wettest November on record, and may have the wettest month ever on record.

There was an interesting Seattle Times article today on the Yellow River in China, which is shrinking. Part over-enthusiastic industrialization, part over-grazing at headwaters, and part global climate change. At least that's what the article said. Think about the problems that could be caused with a water shortage in busy, growing China. Or anywhere else for that matter. Climate change means change in water supply. Maybe not less water, but water in different places, and no water in some that are used to it.

Think migration, and change. Think a lot of moving water from place to place. It's heavy, and sometimes recalcitrant. Strong.

This could be hard.

Note - I also though it worthwhile to provide a link to a post from joec, who commented on another entry and nicely left his url.

Carbon Dioxide Surge and Ambitious Science

2006-11-17T21:34:00.000-08:00

From this weeks Earthweek, there are icebergs floating off of New Zealand. I also saw a post about this from a member of a list I'm on who lives there and was somewhat dismayed. They pointed the bergs out as a direct result of global warming. Also, at least in the newspaper version, a comment that the "rate at which carbon dioxide is entering the atmosphere is increasing four times faster than it was in the 1990's."

Makes it tough to believe that simple things we can do are enough. Mind you, we should still do them.
It may take some ambitious global engineering to help.
I read an article last week about a proposal to put a giant shield over the Earth. In fact, one blog entry on it from the journal Nature mentioned a story Larry Niven and I wrote called "Ice and Mirrors" which suggested a planet was thrown into a deep freeze through a vaguely similar technique. Today, I read an article that talked about putting extra pollution into the atmosphere to shield us from the sun. I don't much like either of these choices - the shield idea is incredibly expensive and the pollution idea just seems wrong (likely some unanticipated consequences there, or just bad trade-offs). But I like it that people are thinking this way. Anything about us doing this kind of grand engineering is scary given the chaotic nature of the climate and the large gaps we still have in our knowledge of it, but we may be doing enough damage that the only solutions are grand.

Moving things closer

2006-11-15T06:52:00.000-08:00

I gave a talk at the Pacific Northwest Entrepreneurs Network about demographics last night, and two of the statistics I used were:

According to CNN, the purchase of “green” building products and energy has almost doubled in the last two years.
The organic food industry grew by 16+ % in 2005, and is now near 14 billion dollars.

One of the things I like to do when I give a speech is to make a conversation. Its good for an audience to be involved, and I can then learn from them. In this case, I probably asked my first question too early, or asked the wrong question since the audience returned silence. But when I asked a question later about "What have you/are you doing about global warming" there were more people willing to talk, and happy to talk. I could hear a hint of pride in their voices. A really simple and great response was from one audience member who mentioned moving all of thier services (think dentist, doctor, dry cleaner, etc.) closer to home. What a nice, easy thing to do. An adjustment that doesn't take a lot of work, saves you time, and reduces driving.

Carbon Offsets and Our Report Card

2006-11-13T21:17:00.000-08:00

The Seattle Times ran an article today about carbon offset programs, such as TerraPass, that I've blogged about. The gist of the article was that this is a fledgling industry with companies that are doing well and others that may not be figuring out how to get the money into real carbon offset. Some, including TerraPass, are willing to be audited and are doing a good job of trying to make a real difference. For others, success is not so clear. So I guess the bottom line to that is to be careful about where you invest your money. That's about the same as any charitable organization...its always a bit useful to do some homework. I like the idea. Philosophically, carbon offsets (buying an investment in clean energy to make up for your carbon emissions) make sense. They are no excuse for not changing our own carbon emissions profile. The current bottom line to mitigation in the climate change game is reducing carbon, so offsets are not bright when your plan is to just keep on consuming at our regular rates and offsetting for guilt reduction. But they make good sense as a way to help mitigate those things we can't help or change.

Top of the AOL news today, Countries Ranked on Climate Change Efforts
By ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY, AP. We're way down at the bottom of the list. We should be leading, and we're lagging. Shame on us.

Thoughts for the Next Congress

2006-11-11T10:23:00.000-08:00

Well, it's amazing how much better I feel since the election. On a lot of fronts, but there should be a good chance for progress on global warming. So here are some thoughts for the next two years:

On Oil:

Let the prices rise. It makes other technologies more cost-effective in comparison, and prices on new energy sources will fall after initial development and with consumer support.
Stay out of ANWR. We're tired of having pretty and wild places cluttered with the machinery of oil. Stay out of other pristine places, too. We might need to stay where we are, and develop shale oil techniques etc. as a bridge. I mean, we get it that this change won't happen overnight. But let's get the train rolling.
Figure out how to live without so much dependence on Middle Eastern oil, so we can get gracefully out of Iraq. This one will be the hardest.

On carbon emissions in general:

Either sign Kyoto and get on with it, or commit to something even more aggressive
Fund research into alternative energy. Both new companies and the existing energy giants. Help turn the oil companies into something else.
Encourage consumer adoption of hybrids and good gas mileage.
Regulate the auto industry on MPG. They can do it.
Use the UN (without John Bolton), and every other international leverage you can get to encourage others as soon as we start setting a good example. Maybe we should partner with Britain to model how to build strong economies in first world countries while shifting away from oil and other egregious fuels. It's possible to get an economic boost out of this, no matter what the oil companies say.

Misc:

Let's add a national discussion on this topic. Get people involved. Hire Al Gore, too, if we need to. Or more. Hire people who care, and fund them. See below.
Cut the amount of money we're throwing at Homeland Security in half, and spend the other half on climate change. Spend at least 90% of that half on action. We know some of what we need to do. Take the half you leave in Homeland Security and focus it more on "all hazards" training than on terrorism. Significant weather events are going to get worse. Help us out.
Find ways to encourage local governments to do more. They are already doing more than you all are.
Build an Americore model, or shift the current one, to help with this. Get the young people and the retired people involved. You won't have to pay them a lot, but you'll get energy and know-how. I bet you get enthusiasm, too.

I know there's more. But that's a start.

Two Waves Hit the Northwest

2006-11-09T20:23:00.000-08:00

The Pacific Northwest was swamped by two waves this week. One the nation is familiar with, the Blue Wave of the Democrats as they take over the Congress. We hope this means greater attention to global warming and energy policy, among all the other priorities they will have.

The second wave you may have missed, unless you live here. In my book I tell the story of spending a day with insurance company executives two years ago, during a torrential downpour, and trying to get them to comment on how normal these kinds of heavy rain storms were becoming. They were not interested, then.

A key expectation of global warming scientists is that the weather will get more wild. We see that here in the Northwest. This week alone we saw:

Rainfall records across Western Washington. Some measurements from the National Weather Service:
-- 8.22 inches at Stampede Pass, breaking an all-time rain record of 7.29 inches set on November 19th, 1962.
-- 3.29 inches at Sea-Tac Airport, breaking the record of .99 set in 1980
-- 4.31 inches at Olympia Airport, breaking the record of 1.74, also set in 1980

And, in Oregon similar records were set.

People shrug this off of course. It is the Northwest. It rains. What else is new?

But now when I see entire valleys flooded, rather than being amazed at a once-in-a-lifetime event, I wonder whether this will become normal.

Probable Good Election for Global Warming

2006-11-07T22:00:00.000-08:00

The democrats are generally friendlier to the Earth. And they're winning. This is a very good thing. It's an uplifting moment on the uphill (but winnable) battle to change our behavior to something easier on our environment.

The energy bill here in Washington State in less clear - we may not win that one. It will be too bad if we don't - imperfect initiative or not, a demand from the electorate for alternative energy sources would be a good thing.

Let's hope we wake up in the morning and discover that the election results stayed good for the Earth. Which is good for us.

Concert Reaction

2006-11-06T07:40:00.000-08:00

I went to an Indigo Girls concert last night. At one point, the lead singer from the opening act, B*tch and the Exciting Conclusion, stepped up to the mike during a rap and said something like "We're using all this oil for driving, and we don't need it any more," and a ripple of enthusiastic applause went through the audience even though she was mid-song.

I would be willing to bet almost all of us at the show still need oil because we don't have the infrastructure to do anything different reliably yet. I would also be willing to bet that as soon as there is a reliable alternative, people will be willing to move fast, and a wave of early adopters will change the economics. There is a growing swell of pent-up demand for a different solution.

It was nice to see the heartfelt and instant reaction to the singer's statement. Art connects with people.

Climate change has a history

2006-11-04T16:28:00.000-08:00

I'm working on a book set partially near the collapse of the Mayan civilizations on the Yucatan peninsula. In my research, I've come across numerous references to climate change as a probable cause for the quick decline of rich, vibrant civilizations. Yes, there are others, including a significant asteroid strike (which could have also contributed to climate change).
Like we are now, that civilization was one of the historically ascendant and stable populations of its time, with a rich economy and ready access to resources.

The climate change in that time (a shift to a dryer climate) appears to have been largely local. The one we are in the midst of now is not. It is global. We should take the history lesson to heart.

I'd also like to link to Glen Hiemstra's excellent blog post about the meaning of the Gore appointment to help England deal with it's global warming actions.

The Young People

2006-11-03T20:03:00.000-08:00

I had a very pleasant lunch yesterday with a gentleman who's son, a college student, wants to devote his life to solving/mitigating global warming. I recently read an article about top majors for college students, and one of the top ten majors for Washington students is organic agriculture.

It feels as if at least a large number of the young people coming up now want to do something good for the world. They are rejecting our choices (which is their job), but unlike the 60's and 70's generation, this group truly wants to act from within the system to change it, a more effective tool than protesting against it.
The Seattle Times ran an article entitled "Hot majors: Sift through the popular to find your passion," by Carol Tice, that said, "One growing area of student interest isn't reflected in a single major category. But students' urge to do social good is showing up in courses in many majors..."

We, of course, can't wait for them to fix the ills we caused. But perhaps they will help us figure out how to rectify our mistakes.