Tidwell on Climate: Forget the Darn Light Bulbs

Enough with the bloody lightbulbs already!

By Mike Tidwell
Published in Grist, www.grist.org
04 Sep 2007

Strange but true: Energy-efficient light bulbs and hybrid cars are hurting our nation’s budding efforts to fight global warming.

More precisely, every time an activist or politician hectors the public to voluntarily reach for a new bulb or spend extra on a Prius, ExxonMobil heaves a big sigh of relief.

Scientists now scream the news about global warming: it’s already here and could soon, very soon, bring tremendous chaos and pain to our world. The networks and newspapers have begun running urgent stories almost daily: The Greenland ice sheet is vanishing! Sea levels are rising! Wildfires are out of control! Hurricanes are getting bigger!

But what’s the solution? Most media sidebars and web links quickly send us to that peppy and bright list we all know so well, one vaguely reminiscent of Better Homes and Gardens: “10 Things You Can Do to Save the Planet.” Standard steps include: change three light bulbs. Consider a hybrid car for your next purchase. Tell the kids to turn out the lights. Even during the recent Al Gore-inspired Live Earth concerts, the phrase “planetary emergency” was followed by “wear more clothes indoors in winter” and “download your music at home to save on the shipping fuel for CDs.”

Nice little gestures all, but are you kidding me? Does anyone think this is the answer? Continue reading

Trees and Global Warming: In defense of trees

The popularity of trees is taking a hit in the land of carbon dioxide equivalents; trees uptake carbon while alive but can be chopped down. It is hard to figure out how much carbon a tree is removing when it is newly planted and has a high chance of mortality. Add to that that fact that some scientists say that the dark color of trees in the North makes it so they absorb the rays of the sun and cancel out the positive effect of absorbing Carbon Dioxide and releasing water vapor (Brahic, C. 2006. Location is key for trees to fight global warming. New Scientist, December 15, 2006. http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn10811-location-is-key-for-trees-to-fight-globalwarming.html. [you need a subscription to read this article]). I have friends in forestry and they asked me to share information with them that I find about trees and global warming, so this post is for them.

Let’s talk for a moment about why trees are crucial to protecting us from global warming. Eric Carlson of Carbonfund shared 8/16 (in the comments of the ClimateProgress blog) this food for thought:

But consider this: Trees are the only carbon offset that actually reduce CO2 emissions in the atmosphere today and from the last half century or longer. Renewables and efficiency reduce the need for future emissions (also critical) but trees serve important social and environmental needs, reduce CO2 today and BUY us time to get to a clean tech future. Also, if deforestation accounts for about 20% of climate change, as many experts agree, reforestation is absolutely a part of the solution. And certified offsets are the same whether they come from wind or trees (which is why certifications are so important). Many of our supporters prefer trees and, given their importance, we give them the choice of which type of offsets they want to support. I absolutely understand people who prefer renewables or efficiency, but I also understand why some people would choose trees and they too are providing an important part of the solution.

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Maryland Residential Energy Efficiency Programs

New! Save money, save energy, and save carbon dioxide emissions: The Maryland Energy Administration has announced four new programs “designed to save Maryland residents both energy and money”, reports Southern Maryland Online.

According to the article, the four new “EmPOWER Maryland” Programs include:

  • Maryland Energy Efficient Affordable Housing Development Program – Using a $250,000 grant from MEA, the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) will initiate an affordable housing program to increase the energy efficiency of homes receiving funding assistance from DHCD. New homes will have to meet the national EPA ENERGY STAR Qualified New Homes energy saving target of 15 percent more energy efficient than required by code. Existing home rehabilitation projects will have to increase their energy efficiency levels by approximately 15 percent.

  • Improving Energy Efficiency in Existing Homes Continue reading

Maryland Climate Change Commission progress

Southern Maryland News reports that “On Wednesday, August 8th, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) hosted the first meeting of the Maryland Climate Change Commission’s Adaptation & Response Working Group (ARWG). ” The executive order to create this Commission was signed by O’Malley back on April 20, 2007. The Commission is to develop a Maryland Climate Action Plan. The Commission also has three working groups: the Scientific and Technical Working Group, the Greenhouse Gas and Carbon Mitigation Working Group, and the Adaptation and Response Working Group.

Notice the word “Adaptation” coming up over and over again now.

The Adaptation and Response working group is chaired by DNR Secretary John R. Griffin, who says that, “If left unchecked, rising temperatures will cause devastating impacts to Maryland’s people, natural resources, and property.” This poor group is assigned the task of cleaning the Augean Stables. I mean they are supposed to “recommend strategies for reducing the vulnerability of the State’s coastal, natural, and cultural resources and communities to the impacts of climate change; and develop a comprehensive strategy for reducing Maryland’s climate change vulnerability” Continue reading

Mike Tidwell interview with Bill Moyers

On August 17th, Mike Tidwell appeared on PBS’s Bill Moyers Journal to revisit the Hurricane Katrina disaster and discuss how global warming is turning every coastal city into the next New Orleans. Here’s an excerpt of the interview:

What gives me optimism in the face of this overwhelming challenge, and, you know, Katrina really is a curtain-raiser. If you want to know what Miami’s going to look like 100 years from now, go to New Orleans today. Below sea level, behind levees, battered by huge storms– if we don’t stop global warming. This climate crisis is here now. The Great Lakes are dropping in water levels. Texas has got too much rain. The Carolinas too little. Hurricanes are getting more intense– it’s here now. It’s not a maybe, kinda sorta, maybe thing in the future that computer modeling says is coming. It’s already deeply here. So, the fact that it’s here, that this giant climate system with all the momentum built in it toward warming, it’s already unpacking its bags. What could possibly give us the optimism and hope that we can now respond at this late stage, strongly and fiercely enough to hold it in check? And the thing that I come back to is, when we decide to change, we tend to change explosively. You know, Look at the great changes in World War II and all these things that have happened in the 20th Century. I believe that this issue of climate change and sustainable– sustainability, which also implies questions of human rights, and fairness. When this light bulb finally goes on, and it’s going on.

You know, I think Katrina opened the door, Al Gore walked through it. And the zeitgeist changed a lot more. But once we finally really get serious, we’re going to change really fast.

Click here to watch it yourself or watch it below:

 

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Is it time for an ethical reckoning at Nat'l Geographic?

Why Does National Geographic Report on the Dangers of Global Warming then Fill its Pockets with Ad Money from Oil Companies and SUV Makers?

The National Geographic Society says global warming is wrecking the Earth and that fossil fuels are to blame. The National Geographic Society also says one of its official goals as an organization is the protection of the Earth’s natural resources. So why does the National Geographic Society accept amazingly ambitious and slick multi-million dollar ads from oil companies and SUV makers? Is it time for an ethical reckoning at Old Yeller?

According to National Geographic magazine, climate change is already virtually out of control. The magazine’s June 2007 cover shows the Greenland ice sheet imploding with the headline: “The Big Thaw: Ice on the Run, Seas on the Rise.” The article, among many run by National Geographic in recent years, graphically illustrates the impacts of climate change: polar bears starving and drowning, ice vanishing worldwide, and the likelihood of 3 feet or more of sea-level rise by 2100, inundating places like Miami and lower Manhattan.

Yet the same magazine routinely runs major ads from oil companies and SUV makers. Indeed, the July 2007 issue, astonishingly, included an entire 9-minute DVD advertisement movie about the great work Shell Oil is doing in Indonesia to squeeze every last drop of oil from the ocean floor. The film is truly shocking. It paints Shell Oil in utterly heroic colors, never mentioning the words global warming and the fact that every drop of that extracted oil contributes to the climate catastrophe featured by National Geographic magazine just the month before. This Shell Oil DVD was delivered to nearly one million North American readers of the magazine this summer. Continue reading

Hotter than July

NOAA reports that July 2007 was the seventh hottest globally on land and sea since records were kept beginning in 1898. This at first does not seem like much news; however it is consistent with the IPCC-predicted

Inaction is Action: EPA drags on emissions waiver

In other words, EPA is blocking states from implementing meaningful standards for automobile emissions simply by refusing to process its mail. In “EPA gets push on emissions controls,” The Baltimore Sun reports that Maryland is held back from implementing the California emissions standards (developed by the California Air Resources Board, or CARB) that it voted to adopt last spring because EPA has not yet given its OK to California; these standards are heavily opposed by automakers. California is the only state that has the right to create these standards due to federal law, subject to EPA approval of a “California Waiver”. Other states are allowed to follow suit once the waiver is passed. EPA has said that it may make a decision by the end of the year- notably, California will have been waiting two years since it first enacted the legislation. EPA claims that it is processing over 60,000 comments and technical reports on the legislation. I read elsewhere that 50,000 of these comments are actually form cards from environmental groups that were filled out in support of the bill. Isn’t that ironic? I want to say that I heard this attributed to Barbara Boxer. Kudos to Maryland legislators:

“It’s very important that states be able to move forward, particularly until we can have an enforceable federal cap in place,” said Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin, a Maryland Democrat who is one of the lawmakers backing legislation that would require the agency to issue a ruling by Sept. 30. “Unfortunately, inaction is action.”

“If we can find some ways to mitigate in small ways the things that we do in the aggregate, like burn carbon fuel, if we can limit that even just a little bit, it can have a salutary impact,” said state Sen. Brian E. Frosh, a Montgomery County Democrat who sponsored the legislation in Maryland. “The way that that works the best is to have national standards. And when you can’t have that … having states do it individually is the second best way.”

“If you look over the history of the automobile industry’s position on reductions in emissions, safety improvements, they’re always crying wolf,” Frosh said. “They always claim that the apocalypse is just around the corner. … The only way these guys make changes that are to the benefit of consumers and to the benefit of the environment is when EPA or the Congress tells them they’ve got to do it.”

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