I recently heard an interview with Clive Hamilton, one of whose books is subtitled "Why We Resist the Truth About Climate Change" — and it occurred to me that I disagree with that on only one word: for most of the people I know, folks do not so much resist the truth about climate change as ignore it. Frustratingly, this applies to people who profess to be very concerned about global warming… but when it comes to deciding whether to get on an airplane for a weekend trip, it simply doesn't even enter their thinking.
After I sent my original missive out to friends and family, I got back a few beautiful and encouraging responses — "I, too, have nightmares about this"… "I will do all I can to support your ideas"… But then life goes on, including those flights around the world. My husband and I are literally (and yes, I do mean literally — the rampant misuse of that word is one of my pet peeves) the only people I know personally who will not set foot on an airplane because of the huge climate implications... I hardly even know anyone else who hangs clothes on a clothesline instead of throwing them into an electric dryer. Perhaps I'm expecting too much, but it seems as if even among those who profess to be concerned about global warming, so few are ready to make any serious changes in their own lives, much less take on any advocacy. It's as if everyone is waiting for our elected "leaders" to do something to fix the situation — once again, not realizing (or perhaps ignoring) the monumental scale of the emergency. As always, I feel we have to keep trying — we can't prevent catastrophe whatever we do, but maybe we can prevent catastrophe from being even worse… But it is hard not to give in to despair.
On another note — it's about time for me to start adding some detail to my original "big three" precepts (the three biggest things an individual can do)… so I will try to get to some specifics regarding air travel next week. Coming soon!
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Friday, July 12, 2013
two brief tidbits — on how far we have to go...
The other day, after I filled up my bottle with bulk olive oil at my local natural foods store and brought it up to the checkout, I got into a bit of conversation with the checker/buyer — when I sighed that I wished I could get the California olive oil in bulk, he asked "Oh — do you like the taste better?" I said no, I prefer not to get my food shipped from halfway across the planet. His reply was "Oh, that carbon footprint thing… I guess it's a matter of your priorities — for me it's all about the taste... I guess I'm part of the problem, huh?" I really couldn't think of a way to answer without being incredibly rude, but of course what I was thinking was "I have a hard time prioritizing slightly better-tasting olive oil over a habitable planet…"
Then two days ago, in an SF Chronicle article about siting huge wind and solar energy plants in pristine southern California deserts, a spokesman for the developer of one of the projects was quoted saying "Those who sincerely care about the birds and the wildlife know that climate change is their greatest threat… and if you want to mitigate climate change while keeping the lights on [my emphasis], responsibly sited wind and solar power is your best answer." Of course, we could never consider just turning off some of those lights! This attitude is so pervasive — we can't even think of changing the way we live, so we must pave over pristine deserts to build more "energy capacity" (however "renewable" it may be). If we were seriously sacrificing and paring down to just what is absolutely necessary to survive, then it might — just barely might — be defensible to think about building energy plants in the desert… But as long as we are using energy to power Las Vegas and pro sports night games (among many other quintessentially nonessential pursuits), even considering this should be beyond the pale. Unfortunately, in our society, this thinking is the norm — there is no greater good than keeping those lights on, keeping up our lifestyles... and preserving life on the planet just has to take a backseat.
Then two days ago, in an SF Chronicle article about siting huge wind and solar energy plants in pristine southern California deserts, a spokesman for the developer of one of the projects was quoted saying "Those who sincerely care about the birds and the wildlife know that climate change is their greatest threat… and if you want to mitigate climate change while keeping the lights on [my emphasis], responsibly sited wind and solar power is your best answer." Of course, we could never consider just turning off some of those lights! This attitude is so pervasive — we can't even think of changing the way we live, so we must pave over pristine deserts to build more "energy capacity" (however "renewable" it may be). If we were seriously sacrificing and paring down to just what is absolutely necessary to survive, then it might — just barely might — be defensible to think about building energy plants in the desert… But as long as we are using energy to power Las Vegas and pro sports night games (among many other quintessentially nonessential pursuits), even considering this should be beyond the pale. Unfortunately, in our society, this thinking is the norm — there is no greater good than keeping those lights on, keeping up our lifestyles... and preserving life on the planet just has to take a backseat.
Saturday, July 6, 2013
Obama's climate speech
Well, I seem to have been pretty well MIA from this blog for the last couple of months — that's what comes of teaching (and dashing between) two schools while trying to look for a new position, I guess… Oh well, now that it's summer break, I should be able to catch up a bit — perhaps even throw some more details onto my big three issues (eating meat, flying, buying stuff)… And I figure that when the so-called leader of the free world finally gets around to recognizing the global warming emergency with more than just a couple of sentences in a state of the union speech, it's as good a time as any for me to jump back in (even if I'm already about a week late — I'm afraid I'm a pretty slow and painstaking writer).
By now I've read plenty of mainstream environmental organizations praising the speech for actually describing the problem in fairly accurate scientific terms, for dissing the deniers ("the Flat Earth Society") for shouting out the divestment movement (just by speaking the word "divest" exactly once)… And it's true that the opening and closing included some beautiful language about the crisis we face.
BUT… the President also boasted — three times (!) — about how we are producing more oil than ever ("produced more oil than we have in 15 years"… "even as we're producing more domestic oil"…), and more natural gas "than anybody else." I guess he at least knew better than to brag about producing coal… but in a speech ostensibly about the climate emergency, this is unconscionable.
He twice referenced that China has passed the US as the world's largest emitter, and made congratulatory mentions of how much the US has "reduced" emissions. Of course, saying that China is the world's largest emitter works only if you start with three givens: 1. you are counting total emissions, not emissions per capita; 2. you are counting the carbon being emitted right now, not cumulatively — even though it is cumulative emissions that matter to the climate (and by that standard, it will take China or anyone else a very long time to catch up); and (and this is the big one) 3. you are counting emissions from the production end, not the consumption end. A big proportion of China's emissions comes from manufacturing for the American market — they are burning all that coal just to make all the stuff that we incessantly shop for...in other words, a huge part of the reason we can boast that "no country on earth has reduced its total carbon pollution by as much as the United States of America" is that we have off-shored our emissions, right along with all those manufacturing jobs going to low-wage countries! Not exactly something to be proud of.
Another theme, revisited four times, was economic growth — "there's no contradiction between a sound environment and strong economic growth." The growth economy is a huge topic that I will take up in another post, but this focus on growth, at the very least, betrays complete ignorance of the extent and scope of the problem. At worst, it betrays something more like indifference — a mindset that nothing (not even a habitable planet) is more important than a growth economy, keeping Wall Street happy while the common people (not to mention the natural world) are left to deal with the crisis the best we can…
As to the Climate Action Plan itself, it could be called a decent start (and could have actually been a decent start, 40 years ago) — but again, the tiny baby steps approach betrays either ignorance of or indifference to the urgency of the situation. The plan prominently recommits to cutting US emissions 17% from 2005 levels by 2020 (which is only a 4% cut from 1990 levels). As a local columnist said, "Here's the bigger issue: Emitting less carbon dioxide isn't a solution to climate change. It beats increases, but by using fossil fuels at all, we're adding to rather than subtracting from the problem. It takes hundreds of years for CO2 to fully leave the atmosphere, and we're already at dangerously high levels." I can't say it better, but maybe a little shorter: the climate doesn't care how fast we put that carbon up in the atmosphere, it only cares about the total amount — so slowing down the rate at which we spew it out does nothing!
But the fatal flaw in the plan — the one which makes it not just too little too late, but actually worse than doing nothing — is its enthusiastic promotion of natural gas (especially fracked natural gas) as a "cleaner-burning" "transition" fuel. Even at best, natural gas is only marginally better than other fossil fuels, only serves to somewhat reduce emissions, when what's needed is to come as close as possible to getting off all fossil fuels, cold turkey, tomorrow… But because of methane leakage at the well, fracked natural gas is actually — please pardon me, but I do feel the need to shout here — WORSE THAN COAL! Methane doesn't hang around in the atmosphere as long as CO2, but over the first 20 years methane is 80 - 105 times more potent as a greenhouse gas (Obama's climate plan calls it 20 times more powerful, but that assumes a 100-year timeframe — and remember, we don't have 100 years!) This means that fracked natural gas is worse for the atmosphere than coal if those "fugitive emissions" are as low as 2%; and the most extensive and credible studies have found up to nearly 8% leakage (other studies have found as much as 17%). Yet this is what Obama is pushing as a way to "reduce our carbon emissions."
And even worse, the plan rests not only upon increasing natural gas production in the US (and exporting that oh-so-dirty fracked gas, which adds even more emissions for transport), but also pushing fracking technology on the rest of the world (through applying "private sector knowhow in countries that transition to natural gas"). This is truly a recipe for disaster… and yes, I am using "pushing" intentionally, because this is also a recipe for keeping the world addicted to fossil fuels — by avoiding any thought of more effective strategies like conservation, or even (perish the thought!) truly changing the way we live our lives...
The plan is at best mistaken — and at worst outright mendacious — on two fronts: first, that natural gas will reduce emissions; and second, that simply reducing emissions is in any way a solution to the emergency we face. I cannot imagine that the President's energy and environment advisors have not informed him about the climate impacts of fracked natural gas — so I'm afraid the only conclusion I can draw is that keeping our economy humming and our energy sector profitable is a higher priority to our leadership than preserving a habitable planet.
I cannot say that this speech was a disappointment, as I did not expect much to begin with; but did I find it to be amazingly frustrating, as the first part really was an eloquent statement of the effects of climate change — and then the rest proceeded to propose policies that will only serve to worsen those effects.
By now I've read plenty of mainstream environmental organizations praising the speech for actually describing the problem in fairly accurate scientific terms, for dissing the deniers ("the Flat Earth Society") for shouting out the divestment movement (just by speaking the word "divest" exactly once)… And it's true that the opening and closing included some beautiful language about the crisis we face.
BUT… the President also boasted — three times (!) — about how we are producing more oil than ever ("produced more oil than we have in 15 years"… "even as we're producing more domestic oil"…), and more natural gas "than anybody else." I guess he at least knew better than to brag about producing coal… but in a speech ostensibly about the climate emergency, this is unconscionable.
He twice referenced that China has passed the US as the world's largest emitter, and made congratulatory mentions of how much the US has "reduced" emissions. Of course, saying that China is the world's largest emitter works only if you start with three givens: 1. you are counting total emissions, not emissions per capita; 2. you are counting the carbon being emitted right now, not cumulatively — even though it is cumulative emissions that matter to the climate (and by that standard, it will take China or anyone else a very long time to catch up); and (and this is the big one) 3. you are counting emissions from the production end, not the consumption end. A big proportion of China's emissions comes from manufacturing for the American market — they are burning all that coal just to make all the stuff that we incessantly shop for...in other words, a huge part of the reason we can boast that "no country on earth has reduced its total carbon pollution by as much as the United States of America" is that we have off-shored our emissions, right along with all those manufacturing jobs going to low-wage countries! Not exactly something to be proud of.
Another theme, revisited four times, was economic growth — "there's no contradiction between a sound environment and strong economic growth." The growth economy is a huge topic that I will take up in another post, but this focus on growth, at the very least, betrays complete ignorance of the extent and scope of the problem. At worst, it betrays something more like indifference — a mindset that nothing (not even a habitable planet) is more important than a growth economy, keeping Wall Street happy while the common people (not to mention the natural world) are left to deal with the crisis the best we can…
As to the Climate Action Plan itself, it could be called a decent start (and could have actually been a decent start, 40 years ago) — but again, the tiny baby steps approach betrays either ignorance of or indifference to the urgency of the situation. The plan prominently recommits to cutting US emissions 17% from 2005 levels by 2020 (which is only a 4% cut from 1990 levels). As a local columnist said, "Here's the bigger issue: Emitting less carbon dioxide isn't a solution to climate change. It beats increases, but by using fossil fuels at all, we're adding to rather than subtracting from the problem. It takes hundreds of years for CO2 to fully leave the atmosphere, and we're already at dangerously high levels." I can't say it better, but maybe a little shorter: the climate doesn't care how fast we put that carbon up in the atmosphere, it only cares about the total amount — so slowing down the rate at which we spew it out does nothing!
But the fatal flaw in the plan — the one which makes it not just too little too late, but actually worse than doing nothing — is its enthusiastic promotion of natural gas (especially fracked natural gas) as a "cleaner-burning" "transition" fuel. Even at best, natural gas is only marginally better than other fossil fuels, only serves to somewhat reduce emissions, when what's needed is to come as close as possible to getting off all fossil fuels, cold turkey, tomorrow… But because of methane leakage at the well, fracked natural gas is actually — please pardon me, but I do feel the need to shout here — WORSE THAN COAL! Methane doesn't hang around in the atmosphere as long as CO2, but over the first 20 years methane is 80 - 105 times more potent as a greenhouse gas (Obama's climate plan calls it 20 times more powerful, but that assumes a 100-year timeframe — and remember, we don't have 100 years!) This means that fracked natural gas is worse for the atmosphere than coal if those "fugitive emissions" are as low as 2%; and the most extensive and credible studies have found up to nearly 8% leakage (other studies have found as much as 17%). Yet this is what Obama is pushing as a way to "reduce our carbon emissions."
And even worse, the plan rests not only upon increasing natural gas production in the US (and exporting that oh-so-dirty fracked gas, which adds even more emissions for transport), but also pushing fracking technology on the rest of the world (through applying "private sector knowhow in countries that transition to natural gas"). This is truly a recipe for disaster… and yes, I am using "pushing" intentionally, because this is also a recipe for keeping the world addicted to fossil fuels — by avoiding any thought of more effective strategies like conservation, or even (perish the thought!) truly changing the way we live our lives...
The plan is at best mistaken — and at worst outright mendacious — on two fronts: first, that natural gas will reduce emissions; and second, that simply reducing emissions is in any way a solution to the emergency we face. I cannot imagine that the President's energy and environment advisors have not informed him about the climate impacts of fracked natural gas — so I'm afraid the only conclusion I can draw is that keeping our economy humming and our energy sector profitable is a higher priority to our leadership than preserving a habitable planet.
I cannot say that this speech was a disappointment, as I did not expect much to begin with; but did I find it to be amazingly frustrating, as the first part really was an eloquent statement of the effects of climate change — and then the rest proceeded to propose policies that will only serve to worsen those effects.
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