Daylight savings time changes may be good for the planet

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

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.

On Carbon Caps and Christmas Lights

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.