Even in the face of striking climate changes close to home and a record year of drought, we still cling to antiquated technology that does more harm than good.
Coal power to drive US emissions higher next year
"Coal-fired power generation will increase by 9.3 percent next year, the report said, in part because utilities are expected to pay almost 20 percent more for natural gas. Burning coal releases more carbon dioxide gas into the atmosphere than natural gas."
If we are going to meet the challenges of increasing population while improving quality of life, we must find new solutions that come from a dialogue among all stakeholders.
How California is planning for a prosperous economy and clean environment
"... the planning process would direct new development to places that would reduce emissions growth, but it would also include significant legal protections to land developers who followed the new plans; there would be safeguards to promote an adequate supply of affordable housing, but all types of housing, from large-lot, single-family homes to multi-family apartments and everything in between would be permitted so long as the targets would be met; and so on."
Such as a partnership among industry, academia, and non-profits to address a root cause of education issues in urban schools.
A community success story: Combining public and private sectors for health care and education
"In Bethlehem, the government (the department of Parks and Recreation), the university (Lehigh), the hospital (St. Luke's), the medical school (the St. Luke's campus of Temple University), a non-profit (the United Way of Greater Lehigh Valley), and a locally-owned corporate sponsor (Just Born, Inc) work together on goals tailored to the community's unique needs, and to the willingness of its partners to help meet them. With the public school as its hub, the partnership focuses everyone's efforts on common goals."
As an avid fan of solar energy and old cartoons, I wonder if they will call this "Popeye Solar".
Leafy green power: Spinach is key ingredient in solar breakthrough
"Commercially viable biohybrid solar cells would be a manifold breakthrough for solar power; their key components are abundant and renewable, so producing them would cost less and be better for the environment than traditional solar cells.
Furthermore, by harnessing the photosynthesizing abilities of plants, biohybrid cells could also greatly increase solar panel efficiency.
However, the cells still have far to progress before they can compete with established solar technology."
And for the environmentally conscious who loves to get their grill on for a football Friday, Saturday or Sunday, a little advice on being a fanatic without the guilt.
Green grilling: A tailgater's contribution to the sports greening movement
"More and more professional sports leagues, teams and venues are making more efficient, healthy and ecologically intelligent choices and have begun to encourage their tailgating fans to do the same."
Happy Friday!
Friday, September 28, 2012
Monday, September 24, 2012
Request Monday (09/24/2012): You say potato, I say subsidy
"This past summer I heard several news stories about environmental groups calling for an end to fossil fuel subsidies. Then the political campaigns picked up on it and started going back and forth over failed green energy subsidies and 'corporate welfare' to rich oil companies. Does the US really subsidize the fossil fuel industry, and if so, how much?"
-Lauren from Brooklyn-
Without wishing to sound like a late-90s Bill Clinton, the answer to your question depends on the definition of the word "subsidy". We can look at it from the point of view of Webster's definition: "a grant by a government to a private person or company to assist an enterprise deemed advantageous to the public", or the Oxford definition: "a sum of money granted by the government or a public body to assist an industry or business so that the price of a commodity or service may remain low or competitive". The World Trade Organization, the international entity charged with monitoring government interference in markets and disciplining those actors who unfairly manipulate those markets to the benefit of their own companies or industries, required seven pages in its 2006 World Trade Report to adequately summarize their definition of a subsidy. For the purpose of answering your question, we will consider a subsidy as follows:
1. A direct action or specific inaction by the government (an example of "inaction" would be a government choosing to not collect a full royalty or tax that laws otherwise require)
2. That directly improves the financial health of a private company or industry through a reduction of cost directly attributable to the action of that company or industry or an increase in revenue directly received by the company or industry from the government (we will ignore money given to consumers specifically for the purchase of a commodity which would indirectly improve the health of the company or industry)
3. Whose purpose is maintaining or improving the financial health of a company or industry (we will ignore infrastructure improvement projects which do improve the financial health of a sector, but whose primary purpose is a public good associated with the infrastructure in question...infrastructure specific to an industry will be included)
I should note that much of the discussion from this past summer, especially centering around the Rio+20 meetings on climate change and policy, focused on worldwide subsidies for fossil fuels. In analysis by National Geographic, again using a different definition of subsidy, the US falls far behind Iran, China, Russia, and India in terms of how much we spend on subsidies. The NRDC estimates that worldwide, governments spend about $775 billion in subsidies. In the US, the amount is not quite so clear, as we will see.
The most fundamental analysis of US subsidies comes from the Environmental Law Institute which looked at US federal support of the fossil fuel and renewable energy industries over the course of 2002-2008. They found that over that timeframe, the US government provided $16.3 billion in direct spending to benefit fossil fuel companies (mostly in research and development), another $53.9 billion in tax breaks, $2.3 billion in research into carbon capture and storage (a technology meant to benefit the coal industry), and $16.8 billion in support to the corn ethanol industry (which, since it emits carbon dioxide and is an additive meant to support the gasoline industry, I will consider with the fossil fuel subsidies). This average of about $15 billion a year agrees with the analysis from National Geographic.
With a pretty solid $15 billion estimate, why is there so much talk about as much as $2.1 trillion in subsidies to fossil fuels? One word....externalities.
Economically, an externality is a cost or benefit associated with an industry that is not reflected directly in the market for that industry. Pollination provided by bees that a keeper specifically raises for honey, or development of the internet from research funded for military purposes show positive externalities. Lung cancer deaths from second-hand smoke, or increased urban blight from the presence of liquor stores exemplify negative externalities. In general, for a consumer to make a "rational" choice in the marketplace, we want all the costs associated with a product or service to show in the price paid by that consumer. In the case of fossil fuels, there are several consequences of fossil fuel use that the industry does not pay directly, and therefore, the consumers of those goods do not see in the price:
1. Increased health care costs: the National Academy of Sciences estimates that the US spends $120 billion each year on health costs associated with fossil fuel use (see their 2010 publication Hidden Costs of Energy for more details on externalities). Although some of this comes from individual consumers, the government, as a large payer in the health care industry, bears much of this cost.
2. Increased costs to make repairs after extreme weather events: In a report from Ceres, the insurance industry (including government and private insurance) stands to pay out about $20 billion in claims in the US related to extreme weather events after paying out $34 billion last year. Of the $20 billion, the US government is slated to pay about $15 billion.
3. Changes in commodity prices: as crop yields decline, and growing areas shift, prices climb with demand remaining high. Studies showing that crop yields decrease with climbing temperatures suggest a role for climate change in the fluctuations in food markets.
4. Pollution cleanup: A 2011 assessment published by the American Economic Association, put the annual cleanup costs associated with US fossil fuel industries at about $10 billion dollars, noting that the cost was more than the benefit received from the industry. The government performs this cleanup in the current economic model.
5. Restoration after mining operations: when an area is strip-mined or used for drilling natural gas or petroleum, the operation leaves a mark on the landscape. Although some oversight agencies requires some level of restoration, most do not. We are left either with a degraded environment that cannot perform the services it once did, or a large cost of cleanup to be covered by taxpayers.
Depending on the source you use, and the value placed on each measure, this can total as much as $500 billion in US economic support for the fossil fuel industry. Our economy has recently shown much resilience to drops in vehicle miles travelled and electricity usage...we can do more with much less. As long as these companies remain profitable, there is no foundation for covering their direct costs in this way. If we eliminate the tax breaks, use insurance markets to assign health and environmental risk directly to producers of pollution, apply carbon taxes as necessary to help consumers pay for the impacts caused by industry, and target stimulus to developing industries that could result in higher levels of public good, we have a better shot of creating a stable, livable economy.
-Lauren from Brooklyn-
Without wishing to sound like a late-90s Bill Clinton, the answer to your question depends on the definition of the word "subsidy". We can look at it from the point of view of Webster's definition: "a grant by a government to a private person or company to assist an enterprise deemed advantageous to the public", or the Oxford definition: "a sum of money granted by the government or a public body to assist an industry or business so that the price of a commodity or service may remain low or competitive". The World Trade Organization, the international entity charged with monitoring government interference in markets and disciplining those actors who unfairly manipulate those markets to the benefit of their own companies or industries, required seven pages in its 2006 World Trade Report to adequately summarize their definition of a subsidy. For the purpose of answering your question, we will consider a subsidy as follows:
1. A direct action or specific inaction by the government (an example of "inaction" would be a government choosing to not collect a full royalty or tax that laws otherwise require)
2. That directly improves the financial health of a private company or industry through a reduction of cost directly attributable to the action of that company or industry or an increase in revenue directly received by the company or industry from the government (we will ignore money given to consumers specifically for the purchase of a commodity which would indirectly improve the health of the company or industry)
3. Whose purpose is maintaining or improving the financial health of a company or industry (we will ignore infrastructure improvement projects which do improve the financial health of a sector, but whose primary purpose is a public good associated with the infrastructure in question...infrastructure specific to an industry will be included)
I should note that much of the discussion from this past summer, especially centering around the Rio+20 meetings on climate change and policy, focused on worldwide subsidies for fossil fuels. In analysis by National Geographic, again using a different definition of subsidy, the US falls far behind Iran, China, Russia, and India in terms of how much we spend on subsidies. The NRDC estimates that worldwide, governments spend about $775 billion in subsidies. In the US, the amount is not quite so clear, as we will see.
The most fundamental analysis of US subsidies comes from the Environmental Law Institute which looked at US federal support of the fossil fuel and renewable energy industries over the course of 2002-2008. They found that over that timeframe, the US government provided $16.3 billion in direct spending to benefit fossil fuel companies (mostly in research and development), another $53.9 billion in tax breaks, $2.3 billion in research into carbon capture and storage (a technology meant to benefit the coal industry), and $16.8 billion in support to the corn ethanol industry (which, since it emits carbon dioxide and is an additive meant to support the gasoline industry, I will consider with the fossil fuel subsidies). This average of about $15 billion a year agrees with the analysis from National Geographic.
With a pretty solid $15 billion estimate, why is there so much talk about as much as $2.1 trillion in subsidies to fossil fuels? One word....externalities.
Economically, an externality is a cost or benefit associated with an industry that is not reflected directly in the market for that industry. Pollination provided by bees that a keeper specifically raises for honey, or development of the internet from research funded for military purposes show positive externalities. Lung cancer deaths from second-hand smoke, or increased urban blight from the presence of liquor stores exemplify negative externalities. In general, for a consumer to make a "rational" choice in the marketplace, we want all the costs associated with a product or service to show in the price paid by that consumer. In the case of fossil fuels, there are several consequences of fossil fuel use that the industry does not pay directly, and therefore, the consumers of those goods do not see in the price:
1. Increased health care costs: the National Academy of Sciences estimates that the US spends $120 billion each year on health costs associated with fossil fuel use (see their 2010 publication Hidden Costs of Energy for more details on externalities). Although some of this comes from individual consumers, the government, as a large payer in the health care industry, bears much of this cost.
2. Increased costs to make repairs after extreme weather events: In a report from Ceres, the insurance industry (including government and private insurance) stands to pay out about $20 billion in claims in the US related to extreme weather events after paying out $34 billion last year. Of the $20 billion, the US government is slated to pay about $15 billion.
3. Changes in commodity prices: as crop yields decline, and growing areas shift, prices climb with demand remaining high. Studies showing that crop yields decrease with climbing temperatures suggest a role for climate change in the fluctuations in food markets.
4. Pollution cleanup: A 2011 assessment published by the American Economic Association, put the annual cleanup costs associated with US fossil fuel industries at about $10 billion dollars, noting that the cost was more than the benefit received from the industry. The government performs this cleanup in the current economic model.
5. Restoration after mining operations: when an area is strip-mined or used for drilling natural gas or petroleum, the operation leaves a mark on the landscape. Although some oversight agencies requires some level of restoration, most do not. We are left either with a degraded environment that cannot perform the services it once did, or a large cost of cleanup to be covered by taxpayers.
Depending on the source you use, and the value placed on each measure, this can total as much as $500 billion in US economic support for the fossil fuel industry. Our economy has recently shown much resilience to drops in vehicle miles travelled and electricity usage...we can do more with much less. As long as these companies remain profitable, there is no foundation for covering their direct costs in this way. If we eliminate the tax breaks, use insurance markets to assign health and environmental risk directly to producers of pollution, apply carbon taxes as necessary to help consumers pay for the impacts caused by industry, and target stimulus to developing industries that could result in higher levels of public good, we have a better shot of creating a stable, livable economy.
Friday, September 21, 2012
Friday Five: September 21, 2012
The Arctic ice may be a thing of the past soon, and that does not just mean that we might find more Captain Americas.
Shrinking arctic ice and the wicked backlash on our weather
"Since the fossil-fuel revolution after World War II, Arctic temperatures have increased at twice the global rate, illustrating a phenomenon called Arctic amplification. Thus, sea ice has melted at an unprecedented rate and is now caught in a vicious cycle known as the ice-albedo feedback: as sea ice retreats, sunshine that would have been reflected into space by the bright white ice is instead absorbed by the ocean, causing waters to warm and melt even more ice."
We need to take new approaches to how we organize ourselves.
What exactly is a smart city?
"While some people continue to take a narrow view of smart cities by seeing them as places that make better use of information and communication technology (ICT), the cities I work with all view smart cities as a broad,integrated approach to improving the efficiency of city operations, the quality of life for its citizens, and growing the local economy."
...and when we find an idea that makes sense to tree-huggers and fiscal conservatives alike, we should jump on it.
A fiscal conservative's manifesto against sprawl
"'We already have more infrastructure than we can afford to maintain and this imbalance, combined with the massively inefficient development pattern it has induced, is the real drag on the economy. Building even more infrastructure on this same model is simply digging the hole deeper.'"
When that bastion of granola-eating environmentalism, the armed forces, get into the picture, you know it's time for change.
Car manufacturers seek a solar boost
"Buzzcuts and heavy weaponry may jar with climate change aesthetics, but back on planet Earth, though, the US military is now spearheading the global assault on carbon emissions on a range of fronts, including solar power.
And the same goes for the motor industry, where the internal combustion engine’s environmental drawbacks seem to be spurring investment in renewables."
Because, one of the last things I want to see happen is the loss of something that brings joy to my life. We all have something that will be lost by a change in climate....I hope you choose to act before you find out it's too late.
Extreme skier turned climate hawk
"Gannett delivers roughly 250 keynote addresses each year (many, it should be noted, via Skype — no air travel required). Her talks start with a jaw-dropping slideshow of her exploits shredding some of the world’s most extreme slopes. Then she extolls all things winter. Just when you think she’s going to bro down and brag about bagging some sick peak in Alaska, she drops the hammer.
'I’m here because I want to save our snow,' Gannett says. 'And what is snow? Water. And water is one of the most precious and endangered resources.'"
Happy Friday!
Shrinking arctic ice and the wicked backlash on our weather
"Since the fossil-fuel revolution after World War II, Arctic temperatures have increased at twice the global rate, illustrating a phenomenon called Arctic amplification. Thus, sea ice has melted at an unprecedented rate and is now caught in a vicious cycle known as the ice-albedo feedback: as sea ice retreats, sunshine that would have been reflected into space by the bright white ice is instead absorbed by the ocean, causing waters to warm and melt even more ice."
We need to take new approaches to how we organize ourselves.
What exactly is a smart city?
"While some people continue to take a narrow view of smart cities by seeing them as places that make better use of information and communication technology (ICT), the cities I work with all view smart cities as a broad,integrated approach to improving the efficiency of city operations, the quality of life for its citizens, and growing the local economy."
...and when we find an idea that makes sense to tree-huggers and fiscal conservatives alike, we should jump on it.
A fiscal conservative's manifesto against sprawl
"'We already have more infrastructure than we can afford to maintain and this imbalance, combined with the massively inefficient development pattern it has induced, is the real drag on the economy. Building even more infrastructure on this same model is simply digging the hole deeper.'"
When that bastion of granola-eating environmentalism, the armed forces, get into the picture, you know it's time for change.
Car manufacturers seek a solar boost
"Buzzcuts and heavy weaponry may jar with climate change aesthetics, but back on planet Earth, though, the US military is now spearheading the global assault on carbon emissions on a range of fronts, including solar power.
And the same goes for the motor industry, where the internal combustion engine’s environmental drawbacks seem to be spurring investment in renewables."
Because, one of the last things I want to see happen is the loss of something that brings joy to my life. We all have something that will be lost by a change in climate....I hope you choose to act before you find out it's too late.
Extreme skier turned climate hawk
"Gannett delivers roughly 250 keynote addresses each year (many, it should be noted, via Skype — no air travel required). Her talks start with a jaw-dropping slideshow of her exploits shredding some of the world’s most extreme slopes. Then she extolls all things winter. Just when you think she’s going to bro down and brag about bagging some sick peak in Alaska, she drops the hammer.
'I’m here because I want to save our snow,' Gannett says. 'And what is snow? Water. And water is one of the most precious and endangered resources.'"
Happy Friday!
Monday, September 17, 2012
Request Monday (09/17/2012): What the frack is going on?
"I hear on the news that low natural gas prices are the result of fracking, and that the US is better off energy-wise because of it. At the same time, there are reports of peoples water being on fire and other issues associated with it. What's the truth?"
-John from Lincoln Park-
Hydraulic fracturing, otherwise known as "fracking", uses small, controlled explosions and pressurized fluid to extract natural gas from within shale deposits. As the chart below shows, around 2008, the price of natural gas dropped significantly due largely to the abrupt drop in demand caused by the economic collapse of that year. At the same time, the exploitation of new natural gas finds in the major shale deposits in the Pennsylvania/New York/Ohio region and the development of existing deposits in the Texas/Arkansas region caused increased production within the US (the bar chart at the bottom of the image). This increased domestic supply combined with lower demand shifted the economics of natural gas, and pricing has remained low since that time.
Environmentally speaking, this offers a bit of a conundrum for those in the field of environmental protection. When burned, natural gas offers much less environmental damage from carbon dioxide, particulate matter, and sulfur/nitrogen oxides than coal or petroleum. Because of this, a shift to more natural gas could, theoretically, delay some of the major environmental impacts from climate change, could reduce air quality issues, and could create a much better economic situation from which to drive further improvements. On the other hand, the process of hydraulic fracturing has many issues that cause problems for the residents near the sites of the natural gas deposits, and larger impacts that may lessen the environmental benefit.
The process of fracking requires drilling straight down several thousand feet to find a shale deposit, then turning horizontally into the shale for several miles. The driller then sends down devices with explosive charges in them to create fractures in the rock formation into which a machine pumps water and chemical fluid to extract both the trapped pockets of natural gas within the formation as well as the natural gas that has chemically bonded to the rock. The charge device then runs back up the well, creating a vacuum that draws the natural gas out of the formation. Because of the horizontal drilling capabilities, a single vertical well can mine several square miles of deposit. When completing the process, the driller is required to pump the wastewater back into the injection well as a means of disposal.
The primary environmental concerns come from four major aspects of the drilling: 1. polluting of underground water system with the chemical solutions used, 2. increased seismic activity due to the wastewater disposal, 3. the destruction of rural landscape with permanent damage due to drilling and infrastructure creation, and 4. the release of methane during the drilling process.
Water pollution
Companies that drill for natural gas by fracking consider the chemical solutions they use a proprietary technology that they should not have to make public. Environmental groups charge that without transparency and oversight, no one can know whether the process releases chemical compounds into the groundwater. Texas has started to required disclosure, and others will follow. If done properly, drilling as part of fracking should include a thick concrete silo at the top of the well running well below the water table (that sits only within the first several hundred feet below the surface). This should, in theory, prevent the pollution of underground water sources, however recent events in Pennsylvania have raised doubts about industry practices and have increased calls for more regulation. It remains to be seen if regulating the quality of well encasements will eliminate the issues, or if they are intrinsic to the process.
Seismic activity
Although some have concerns over the underground explosions that fracture the rock, the pressurization of waste fluids back into the well actually cause the seismic activity associated with hydraulic fracturing. Scientists on both sides agree that all forms of drilling cause increases in activity due to this wastewater disposal. However, disagreement comes from the seriousness of the issue. One study notes that magnitude 3 seismic activity has increased sharply in the Midwest due to fracking operations. Others note that disposal has happened at tens of thousands of sites for over twenty years, so we would have noticed problems well before this. As fracking moves drilling operations closer and closer to urban areas than previous forms of fossil fuel exploration, we will see which side is right.
Destruction of land
Like development of wind farms, fracking development requires the taking of land (largely forest clearing or farmland) to create the well and gravel roads and infrastructure to support the extraction. In addition, prior to pumping the waste fluids back into the well, companies store the fluid in surface ponds near the well site. All of these conditions create land that cannot easily be restored to its previous use (and in the case of the well head, never). To date, I have not heard of a requirement that companies put up the capital to restore areas to their previous use as part of their development.
Methane release
Methane has a higher potency as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Although natural gas (largely composed of methane) when burned releases less carbon dioxide, when extracting it, leakage from well heads can reduce or eliminate the benefit.
Fracking has made energy costs cheaper in this country. This will invariably lead to an increase in the use of natural gas as a competitor to other fossil fuels, which will increase demand and prices accordingly. Right now, we enjoy the lower cost of heating and producing electricity, but this comes at a cost. In the European Union, they practice the precautionary principle to have some assurance that practices will be benign before they gain widespread use. In our case, we do not practice that principle, and therefore must wait until something is in widespread use before we learn whether it is dangerous to us. The early results suggest that human quality of life in the areas of development has been threatened. With the benefit of reduced greenhouse gas emissions being called into question, the remaining benefit is the reduced cost of energy. In the short term, it definitely helps. But in the long term, would the investments in exploration have been better spent on efficiency, thereby reducing costs in the short and long term? Only time will tell.
-John from Lincoln Park-
Hydraulic fracturing, otherwise known as "fracking", uses small, controlled explosions and pressurized fluid to extract natural gas from within shale deposits. As the chart below shows, around 2008, the price of natural gas dropped significantly due largely to the abrupt drop in demand caused by the economic collapse of that year. At the same time, the exploitation of new natural gas finds in the major shale deposits in the Pennsylvania/New York/Ohio region and the development of existing deposits in the Texas/Arkansas region caused increased production within the US (the bar chart at the bottom of the image). This increased domestic supply combined with lower demand shifted the economics of natural gas, and pricing has remained low since that time.
Environmentally speaking, this offers a bit of a conundrum for those in the field of environmental protection. When burned, natural gas offers much less environmental damage from carbon dioxide, particulate matter, and sulfur/nitrogen oxides than coal or petroleum. Because of this, a shift to more natural gas could, theoretically, delay some of the major environmental impacts from climate change, could reduce air quality issues, and could create a much better economic situation from which to drive further improvements. On the other hand, the process of hydraulic fracturing has many issues that cause problems for the residents near the sites of the natural gas deposits, and larger impacts that may lessen the environmental benefit.
The process of fracking requires drilling straight down several thousand feet to find a shale deposit, then turning horizontally into the shale for several miles. The driller then sends down devices with explosive charges in them to create fractures in the rock formation into which a machine pumps water and chemical fluid to extract both the trapped pockets of natural gas within the formation as well as the natural gas that has chemically bonded to the rock. The charge device then runs back up the well, creating a vacuum that draws the natural gas out of the formation. Because of the horizontal drilling capabilities, a single vertical well can mine several square miles of deposit. When completing the process, the driller is required to pump the wastewater back into the injection well as a means of disposal.
The primary environmental concerns come from four major aspects of the drilling: 1. polluting of underground water system with the chemical solutions used, 2. increased seismic activity due to the wastewater disposal, 3. the destruction of rural landscape with permanent damage due to drilling and infrastructure creation, and 4. the release of methane during the drilling process.
Water pollution
Companies that drill for natural gas by fracking consider the chemical solutions they use a proprietary technology that they should not have to make public. Environmental groups charge that without transparency and oversight, no one can know whether the process releases chemical compounds into the groundwater. Texas has started to required disclosure, and others will follow. If done properly, drilling as part of fracking should include a thick concrete silo at the top of the well running well below the water table (that sits only within the first several hundred feet below the surface). This should, in theory, prevent the pollution of underground water sources, however recent events in Pennsylvania have raised doubts about industry practices and have increased calls for more regulation. It remains to be seen if regulating the quality of well encasements will eliminate the issues, or if they are intrinsic to the process.
Seismic activity
Although some have concerns over the underground explosions that fracture the rock, the pressurization of waste fluids back into the well actually cause the seismic activity associated with hydraulic fracturing. Scientists on both sides agree that all forms of drilling cause increases in activity due to this wastewater disposal. However, disagreement comes from the seriousness of the issue. One study notes that magnitude 3 seismic activity has increased sharply in the Midwest due to fracking operations. Others note that disposal has happened at tens of thousands of sites for over twenty years, so we would have noticed problems well before this. As fracking moves drilling operations closer and closer to urban areas than previous forms of fossil fuel exploration, we will see which side is right.
Destruction of land
Like development of wind farms, fracking development requires the taking of land (largely forest clearing or farmland) to create the well and gravel roads and infrastructure to support the extraction. In addition, prior to pumping the waste fluids back into the well, companies store the fluid in surface ponds near the well site. All of these conditions create land that cannot easily be restored to its previous use (and in the case of the well head, never). To date, I have not heard of a requirement that companies put up the capital to restore areas to their previous use as part of their development.
Methane release
Methane has a higher potency as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Although natural gas (largely composed of methane) when burned releases less carbon dioxide, when extracting it, leakage from well heads can reduce or eliminate the benefit.
Fracking has made energy costs cheaper in this country. This will invariably lead to an increase in the use of natural gas as a competitor to other fossil fuels, which will increase demand and prices accordingly. Right now, we enjoy the lower cost of heating and producing electricity, but this comes at a cost. In the European Union, they practice the precautionary principle to have some assurance that practices will be benign before they gain widespread use. In our case, we do not practice that principle, and therefore must wait until something is in widespread use before we learn whether it is dangerous to us. The early results suggest that human quality of life in the areas of development has been threatened. With the benefit of reduced greenhouse gas emissions being called into question, the remaining benefit is the reduced cost of energy. In the short term, it definitely helps. But in the long term, would the investments in exploration have been better spent on efficiency, thereby reducing costs in the short and long term? Only time will tell.
Friday, September 14, 2012
Friday Five: September 14, 2012
We can wait for the government to make major investments in infrastructure that will promote better stewardship of resources and more resilient communities.
Chicago ready to buy land near Union Station for bus rapid transit center
"Sheltered staging area for CTA buses would include a vertical connection to an existing Amtrak underground passageway. That would allow commuters to access the Union Station concourse crossing Canal and Jackson at street level."
Or we can start to make the choices ourselves to create them today through our actions.
How communities can support walkability and be recognized for it
"Although the program is mostly forward-looking, the assessment tool does require applicants to provide some objective performance-based criteria, including the portion of commuting trips taken by walking according to Census data, as well as accident data involving pedestrians. It also includes some highly relevant questions to elicit objective data on some important factors that can influence walking, such as public transit availability and performance, sidewalk and street crossing presence and standards, and enforcement of traffic safety laws."
We can hope that elected leaders and business take the right actions to make resource efficiency an accessible priority.
Can PACE local energy financing come back?
"After effectively suspending residential PACE energy efficiency and renewable energy municipal financing programs in 2010, and then being taken to federal court and required to do a revised rule making, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) released its revised ruling on PACE programs [pdf] earlier this summer."
Or we can take matters into our own hands and pursue even some crazy ideas to improve quality of life with fewer resources.
Solar Oven Makes Clean Drinking Water from Salt Water
"Technology doesn't always have to be complicated, sometimes the simplest materials and concepts are the best. The Eliodomestico works like an upside-down coffee percolator to desalinate salt water. The ceramic oven has three main pieces. The top black container is where the salt water is poured. As the sun heats the salt water and creates steam, the pressure that builds pushes the steam through a pipe in the middle section. The steam condenses against the lid of the basin at the bottom and then drips into the basin, where it is collected."
Even more importantly, we can heal.
Remembering 9/11 with a meal grown at Ground Zero
"But this Sept. 11, I am throwing off the chains of oppression and setting out to do something that I think neither the Ground Zero rebuilding architect Daniel Libeskind, nor Mayor Michael Bloomberg, nor the billionaire World Trade Center leaseholder Larry Silverstein have even contemplated.
Yes, this year at Ground Zero I will grow a meal."
Happy Friday!
Chicago ready to buy land near Union Station for bus rapid transit center
"Sheltered staging area for CTA buses would include a vertical connection to an existing Amtrak underground passageway. That would allow commuters to access the Union Station concourse crossing Canal and Jackson at street level."
Or we can start to make the choices ourselves to create them today through our actions.
How communities can support walkability and be recognized for it
"Although the program is mostly forward-looking, the assessment tool does require applicants to provide some objective performance-based criteria, including the portion of commuting trips taken by walking according to Census data, as well as accident data involving pedestrians. It also includes some highly relevant questions to elicit objective data on some important factors that can influence walking, such as public transit availability and performance, sidewalk and street crossing presence and standards, and enforcement of traffic safety laws."
We can hope that elected leaders and business take the right actions to make resource efficiency an accessible priority.
Can PACE local energy financing come back?
"After effectively suspending residential PACE energy efficiency and renewable energy municipal financing programs in 2010, and then being taken to federal court and required to do a revised rule making, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) released its revised ruling on PACE programs [pdf] earlier this summer."
Or we can take matters into our own hands and pursue even some crazy ideas to improve quality of life with fewer resources.
Solar Oven Makes Clean Drinking Water from Salt Water
"Technology doesn't always have to be complicated, sometimes the simplest materials and concepts are the best. The Eliodomestico works like an upside-down coffee percolator to desalinate salt water. The ceramic oven has three main pieces. The top black container is where the salt water is poured. As the sun heats the salt water and creates steam, the pressure that builds pushes the steam through a pipe in the middle section. The steam condenses against the lid of the basin at the bottom and then drips into the basin, where it is collected."
Even more importantly, we can heal.
Remembering 9/11 with a meal grown at Ground Zero
"But this Sept. 11, I am throwing off the chains of oppression and setting out to do something that I think neither the Ground Zero rebuilding architect Daniel Libeskind, nor Mayor Michael Bloomberg, nor the billionaire World Trade Center leaseholder Larry Silverstein have even contemplated.
Yes, this year at Ground Zero I will grow a meal."
Happy Friday!
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Adding Light Spotlight (09/12/2012)
The Adding Light Spotlight highlights people or organizations working to make our communities stronger, more resilient, and safer for our improved quality of life. Through the Spotlight, I hope to demonstrate that EVERYONE does not have to do EVERYTHING to make our world better as long as EVERYONE does SOMETHING.
I have often heard that if half the people complain you have sold out, and half the people complain that you are too idealistic, then you are probably doing pretty good. That is how I feel about Whole Foods Market. Although I believe strongly in buying local wherever possible, and luckily my neighborhood has a high quality, family-owned grocery about a mile-and-a-half from my house, my family and I still shop at Whole Foods because I appreciate what they have done for the marketplace for quality food, and because we can find some of our monthly purchases only at Whole Foods Market.
You can read the Whole Foods Market history on their website, as well as their list of unacceptable ingredients in foods they sell. Even though some have suggested they do not take a hard enough line on genetically modified foods (GMOs), they have taken great strides to keep their customers informed about what is in the food they sell.
Which leads me to the two reasons I feature them in The Spotlight this week: they truly care about keeping the customer informed about what they are really purchasing in their stores, and they are upfront with their customers about what they should expect from their shopping experience. The best example of how they keep customers informed comes from their meat department. Whole Foods partnered with Global Animal Partnership to use their 5-Step (TM) Animal Welfare Rating Standard to let customers know how their meat got from farm to the customer's table.
I would love if our local store would do this as well....at least to let me know so that I can make an informed choice as a consumer. I have no delusion that pasture-raised beef will make huge in-roads to the southside market, but should it ever get there, I want to know as certainly as I can.
I do not have enough insider information to know to what level Whole Foods might be hypocritical to its socially conscious values (see here and here if you want to research further). I certainly know that they have similar labor issues as other large chain retailers, and that they have been staunchly anti-union (and have the resulting high turnover that comes with it). Amidst all that, what strikes me is that they try. They view their customers and employees as stakeholders. They do not pretend to be a benefit corporation without profit motive. They run their company like any other publicly traded company working for the benefit of their investors....with one difference, they have made as their core product a higher quality food supply. They almost single-handedly established the market for organic food (a position I for one wish they would stay out of the labeling of and stick to the selling of), have educated a whole generation of foodies, and continue to push the envelope in terms of informing the customer.
All in all, I would love for Whole Foods to tighten up its practices to be 100% in compliance with their values, and certainly for them to get better with their labor issues...but as long as they provide a product that I can trust more than others, and as long as they continue to have a selection that respects a variety of food choices, I will continue to do some of my shopping there.
I have often heard that if half the people complain you have sold out, and half the people complain that you are too idealistic, then you are probably doing pretty good. That is how I feel about Whole Foods Market. Although I believe strongly in buying local wherever possible, and luckily my neighborhood has a high quality, family-owned grocery about a mile-and-a-half from my house, my family and I still shop at Whole Foods because I appreciate what they have done for the marketplace for quality food, and because we can find some of our monthly purchases only at Whole Foods Market.
You can read the Whole Foods Market history on their website, as well as their list of unacceptable ingredients in foods they sell. Even though some have suggested they do not take a hard enough line on genetically modified foods (GMOs), they have taken great strides to keep their customers informed about what is in the food they sell.
Which leads me to the two reasons I feature them in The Spotlight this week: they truly care about keeping the customer informed about what they are really purchasing in their stores, and they are upfront with their customers about what they should expect from their shopping experience. The best example of how they keep customers informed comes from their meat department. Whole Foods partnered with Global Animal Partnership to use their 5-Step (TM) Animal Welfare Rating Standard to let customers know how their meat got from farm to the customer's table.
I do not have enough insider information to know to what level Whole Foods might be hypocritical to its socially conscious values (see here and here if you want to research further). I certainly know that they have similar labor issues as other large chain retailers, and that they have been staunchly anti-union (and have the resulting high turnover that comes with it). Amidst all that, what strikes me is that they try. They view their customers and employees as stakeholders. They do not pretend to be a benefit corporation without profit motive. They run their company like any other publicly traded company working for the benefit of their investors....with one difference, they have made as their core product a higher quality food supply. They almost single-handedly established the market for organic food (a position I for one wish they would stay out of the labeling of and stick to the selling of), have educated a whole generation of foodies, and continue to push the envelope in terms of informing the customer.
All in all, I would love for Whole Foods to tighten up its practices to be 100% in compliance with their values, and certainly for them to get better with their labor issues...but as long as they provide a product that I can trust more than others, and as long as they continue to have a selection that respects a variety of food choices, I will continue to do some of my shopping there.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Request Monday $1 short edition (09/10/2012): Foam-ing at the mouth...
"I heard recently that Jamba Juice is moving away from styrofoam cups, but what is the big deal with styrofoam? Why does everyone want to get rid of it, and why can't we just recycle it?"
-Anne from Highland Park-
Styrofoam is the brand name (much like Kleenex or Xerox) for expanded polystyrene, a plastic polymer of styrene that can either be blown into form (expanded) or shaped into form (extruded) to provide either good insulation or strength respectively. The extruded polystyrene has plastic properties that render it impossible to recycle. We cannot truly recycle expanded polystyrene (Styrofoam) either, but rather, downcycle it into a different product. Once blown into shape, we cannot reform it into a form where we could reshape it. This means that if we throw expanded polystyrene into recycling streams, we do not reduce the use of virgin materials in the same way we do with paper, glass or aluminum. The virgin material, in this case and that of most plastics, is petroleum.
Beyond the issues with petroleum products and their effects on the environment, expanded polystyrene has some specific effects of its own. First, the process of making it can release styrene, a potential carcinogen, into the area where workers nearby can ingest it. Although OSHA could not introduce a hard rule limiting worker exposure to styrene, the industry recommends limits of 50 ppm. Second, the process of forming polystyrene causes combustion of the styrene, forming a volatile substance that when reacted with air forms ground-level ozone. In the upper atmosphere, ozone does a great job of blocking UV rays from the sun, but in the breathing zone, it causes lung irritation. Third, because of its lightweight properties (beneficial for packaging food products as #6 plastic), it takes up large volumes when mixed in standard single-stream recycling. This increases the volume, but not the weight, of solid waste pickups and reduces effectiveness. Lastly for our purposes, the material can be directly ingested by animals, working its way into the food chain and eventually human consumption where it, like all other plastics, can disrupt hormone cycles in humans.
Styrofoam as home insulation, its original purpose, has great benefit and generally does not go through the same life cycle as expanded polystyrene for food packaging and transport. We should still use it, until more viable alternatives are found. For food packaging, however, more viable options exist. We can use plant-based plastics for bakery item and general food packaging. Biodegradeable materials (like Puffy Stuff) can serve as protection during shipping, be reused as packaging material then used to fertilize plants. Many companies already use cardboard instead of expanded polystyrene to ship electronics and other fragile items. Thanks to Starbucks, we already have viable, recyclable (or biodegradable) options for transporting hot drinks.
Styrofoam is yet another product that serves a strong, unique purpose that we have expanded beyond reasonable need. If we can improve working conditions for those that produce it for building insulation, we have a relatively benign product that reduces need for fossil-fuel-based building conditioning systems. We do not, however, need to proliferate the product, as we have, in the food system. This is one of those products to REDUCE (or eliminate) in the grand scheme of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
(Thanks to EarthResource.org, Earth 911, and Way-To-Go.org for the information to help with this post.)
-Anne from Highland Park-
Styrofoam is the brand name (much like Kleenex or Xerox) for expanded polystyrene, a plastic polymer of styrene that can either be blown into form (expanded) or shaped into form (extruded) to provide either good insulation or strength respectively. The extruded polystyrene has plastic properties that render it impossible to recycle. We cannot truly recycle expanded polystyrene (Styrofoam) either, but rather, downcycle it into a different product. Once blown into shape, we cannot reform it into a form where we could reshape it. This means that if we throw expanded polystyrene into recycling streams, we do not reduce the use of virgin materials in the same way we do with paper, glass or aluminum. The virgin material, in this case and that of most plastics, is petroleum.
Beyond the issues with petroleum products and their effects on the environment, expanded polystyrene has some specific effects of its own. First, the process of making it can release styrene, a potential carcinogen, into the area where workers nearby can ingest it. Although OSHA could not introduce a hard rule limiting worker exposure to styrene, the industry recommends limits of 50 ppm. Second, the process of forming polystyrene causes combustion of the styrene, forming a volatile substance that when reacted with air forms ground-level ozone. In the upper atmosphere, ozone does a great job of blocking UV rays from the sun, but in the breathing zone, it causes lung irritation. Third, because of its lightweight properties (beneficial for packaging food products as #6 plastic), it takes up large volumes when mixed in standard single-stream recycling. This increases the volume, but not the weight, of solid waste pickups and reduces effectiveness. Lastly for our purposes, the material can be directly ingested by animals, working its way into the food chain and eventually human consumption where it, like all other plastics, can disrupt hormone cycles in humans.
Styrofoam as home insulation, its original purpose, has great benefit and generally does not go through the same life cycle as expanded polystyrene for food packaging and transport. We should still use it, until more viable alternatives are found. For food packaging, however, more viable options exist. We can use plant-based plastics for bakery item and general food packaging. Biodegradeable materials (like Puffy Stuff) can serve as protection during shipping, be reused as packaging material then used to fertilize plants. Many companies already use cardboard instead of expanded polystyrene to ship electronics and other fragile items. Thanks to Starbucks, we already have viable, recyclable (or biodegradable) options for transporting hot drinks.
Styrofoam is yet another product that serves a strong, unique purpose that we have expanded beyond reasonable need. If we can improve working conditions for those that produce it for building insulation, we have a relatively benign product that reduces need for fossil-fuel-based building conditioning systems. We do not, however, need to proliferate the product, as we have, in the food system. This is one of those products to REDUCE (or eliminate) in the grand scheme of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
(Thanks to EarthResource.org, Earth 911, and Way-To-Go.org for the information to help with this post.)
Friday, September 7, 2012
Friday Five: September 7, 2012
A hot topic in the news this week, researchers "find" no difference in nutrition between organic and conventional food...but that begs two questions: Were they looking in the right place? and Is the question of nutrition like asking whether milk is wetter than juice...does the answer mean anything?
Organic foods might not be more nutritious, but you should eat it anyway
"in the first 24 hours after the study was released, many writers and food experts stepped up to point out some important gaps both in the study’s approach and in the media coverage."
The question of nutrition overshadowed an more impending issue, that of the cost of food in a changing climate.
Extreme weather supersizes global food price tags
"Our failure to slash greenhouse gas emissions presents a future of greater food price volatility, with severe consequences for the precarious lives and livelihoods of people living in poverty."
We will need innovative solutions in order to increase the availability and reliability of less damaging food options...
Giving sustainable food businesses a needed push
"The company helps people develop business plans for food and farm start-ups that are both financially sustainable and environmentally responsible, with a big-picture goal of becoming the de-facto global resource for local food entrepreneurship."
...and will need to overcome some market inertia to give people options when they buy food for their families.
Beyond Farmer's Markets: Why Local Food belongs on grocery shelves
"Business models like food hubs and cooperatives, and infrastructure like regional storage facilities, processing plants, and distribution networks, can help these producers reach new markets that are demanding locally grown products. That's why the USDA supports business development planning as well as the brick and mortar needed to get food from the farm to the consumer."
In a nod to a decidedly local issue of energy availability, we are learning that the best way forward is to replace something with nothing while increasing the quality of life.
As Crawford and Fisk retire, negawatt plants power up and pay off for Illinoisans
"Energy efficiency-powered “negawatt” plants are cropping up all over the state. Perhaps you haven’t noticed them at all. They’re invisible. They don’t belch out any pollution. They quietly reduce your electric bills. They put people to work all over the state and they do it all with very little recognition. Let’s take a brief tour – no hard hat or asthma inhaler required. "
Happy Friday!
Organic foods might not be more nutritious, but you should eat it anyway
"in the first 24 hours after the study was released, many writers and food experts stepped up to point out some important gaps both in the study’s approach and in the media coverage."
The question of nutrition overshadowed an more impending issue, that of the cost of food in a changing climate.
Extreme weather supersizes global food price tags
"Our failure to slash greenhouse gas emissions presents a future of greater food price volatility, with severe consequences for the precarious lives and livelihoods of people living in poverty."
We will need innovative solutions in order to increase the availability and reliability of less damaging food options...
Giving sustainable food businesses a needed push
"The company helps people develop business plans for food and farm start-ups that are both financially sustainable and environmentally responsible, with a big-picture goal of becoming the de-facto global resource for local food entrepreneurship."
...and will need to overcome some market inertia to give people options when they buy food for their families.
Beyond Farmer's Markets: Why Local Food belongs on grocery shelves
"Business models like food hubs and cooperatives, and infrastructure like regional storage facilities, processing plants, and distribution networks, can help these producers reach new markets that are demanding locally grown products. That's why the USDA supports business development planning as well as the brick and mortar needed to get food from the farm to the consumer."
In a nod to a decidedly local issue of energy availability, we are learning that the best way forward is to replace something with nothing while increasing the quality of life.
As Crawford and Fisk retire, negawatt plants power up and pay off for Illinoisans
"Energy efficiency-powered “negawatt” plants are cropping up all over the state. Perhaps you haven’t noticed them at all. They’re invisible. They don’t belch out any pollution. They quietly reduce your electric bills. They put people to work all over the state and they do it all with very little recognition. Let’s take a brief tour – no hard hat or asthma inhaler required. "
Happy Friday!
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Adding Light Spotlight (09/06/2012)
The Adding Light Spotlight highlights people or organizations working to make our communities stronger, more resilient, and safer for our improved quality of life. Through the Spotlight, I hope to demonstrate that EVERYONE does not have to do EVERYTHING to make our world better as long as EVERYONE does SOMETHING.
RESIDENTIAL COMPOSTING FLYER FOR SAN FRANCISCO RECYCLING PROGRAM
Since the days of Woodsy Owl, my generation has started a rethinking of America as the "throw-away society". To my children, recycling cans and separated trash pickup blends into the background because they have always seen it. To my parents and grandparents, the thrift of the Depression era and World War II era remained a part of their character. My generation needed continuous reminders and retraining, and as our country's population has grown (growing by more than fifty percent since my birth), and our per capita consumption with it (from 3.25 pounds per person per day in 1970 to 4.72 pounds per person per day in 2000), we have come to realize the inherent instability of a lifestyle in which materials flow only from extraction to burial. Even though we have improved the per capita waste generation over the past 10 years, it has not been enough to offset population growth, so we remain at about 250 million tons of waste per year generated by Americans.
Against this backdrop, the City of San Franscisco has taken huge leaps in improving the manner in which citizens treat municipal solid waste as a resource and not as worthless material to be buried. The program is remarkable in several aspects, but the one that grabs my attention most centers around organic waste. In the US, approximately 14% of municipal solid waste comes from food waste or yard scraps. This poses three significant issues: 1. Much of that food waste comes from un-eaten food, posing a lost opportunity to feed more Americans, 2. The nutrients in the food, and the embodied energy in the material, go to waste when they have great value to future food production, and 3. The decomposition of the material produces methane gas which when burned adds to greenhouse gas emissions, and even more significantly when just released into the atmosphere. San Francisco has taken great strides to increase the rate of overall recycling (defined as total diverted material/total landfilled material), and as of 2010, achieved 77% diversion from landfill (by comparison, Chicago - in which I live - struggles to get to 15%). Hidden within this number, the city diverted about 210,000 tons of organic waste...about 10% of the total solid material for the year. This made up about 10% of the solid material stream, and with about 14% total organic waste, they have reached about 71% diversion of nutrient-rich organic waste. They have done as follows:
1. They require residents to recycle by city ordinance. Everyone must have three cans...one black can for landfill waste, one blue can for recycling, and one green can for organic material, and must use them.
2. To ease the burden of the ordinance, pickup of the blue and green cans costs residents nothing. Pickup of the black cans costs about $27 per month for a resident filling a standard 32-gallon black can. In addition, if a resident can reduce their landfill waste to the point where they can use a 20-gallon black can, the monthly cost drops to almost $20. By recycling, a resident can spend almost $90 less per year, providing a great incentive.
3. The city and the waste management company (Recology) have several toolkits, resources, and online guides to help residents, small businesses, and commercial real estate developers meet the requirements of the ordinance.
There is no question that the only way to a sustainable future follows a path that eliminates waste. We must use and package less, and reuse and rebuild more. Once we reach that point, the only form of recycling we will need, and must prepare to execute, is organic material. San Francisco has shown that even in a large city, we can show respect for the materials that support our life in a cost effective manner...as long as we have the political will to do so. Programs that charge fees proportional to usage, respect living matter, create jobs (Recology employs between 900 and 1000 people in its recycling operations), and improve quality of life without additional cost should have buy-in from all areas of the political spectrum. I hope you will take a look at what San Francisco has done, and work to make that change happen in your neighborhood. Zero waste by 2020 is not a dream, it is an achievable imperative...and San Francisco has proven to us all that we can do it.
RESIDENTIAL COMPOSTING FLYER FOR SAN FRANCISCO RECYCLING PROGRAM
Since the days of Woodsy Owl, my generation has started a rethinking of America as the "throw-away society". To my children, recycling cans and separated trash pickup blends into the background because they have always seen it. To my parents and grandparents, the thrift of the Depression era and World War II era remained a part of their character. My generation needed continuous reminders and retraining, and as our country's population has grown (growing by more than fifty percent since my birth), and our per capita consumption with it (from 3.25 pounds per person per day in 1970 to 4.72 pounds per person per day in 2000), we have come to realize the inherent instability of a lifestyle in which materials flow only from extraction to burial. Even though we have improved the per capita waste generation over the past 10 years, it has not been enough to offset population growth, so we remain at about 250 million tons of waste per year generated by Americans.
Against this backdrop, the City of San Franscisco has taken huge leaps in improving the manner in which citizens treat municipal solid waste as a resource and not as worthless material to be buried. The program is remarkable in several aspects, but the one that grabs my attention most centers around organic waste. In the US, approximately 14% of municipal solid waste comes from food waste or yard scraps. This poses three significant issues: 1. Much of that food waste comes from un-eaten food, posing a lost opportunity to feed more Americans, 2. The nutrients in the food, and the embodied energy in the material, go to waste when they have great value to future food production, and 3. The decomposition of the material produces methane gas which when burned adds to greenhouse gas emissions, and even more significantly when just released into the atmosphere. San Francisco has taken great strides to increase the rate of overall recycling (defined as total diverted material/total landfilled material), and as of 2010, achieved 77% diversion from landfill (by comparison, Chicago - in which I live - struggles to get to 15%). Hidden within this number, the city diverted about 210,000 tons of organic waste...about 10% of the total solid material for the year. This made up about 10% of the solid material stream, and with about 14% total organic waste, they have reached about 71% diversion of nutrient-rich organic waste. They have done as follows:
1. They require residents to recycle by city ordinance. Everyone must have three cans...one black can for landfill waste, one blue can for recycling, and one green can for organic material, and must use them.
2. To ease the burden of the ordinance, pickup of the blue and green cans costs residents nothing. Pickup of the black cans costs about $27 per month for a resident filling a standard 32-gallon black can. In addition, if a resident can reduce their landfill waste to the point where they can use a 20-gallon black can, the monthly cost drops to almost $20. By recycling, a resident can spend almost $90 less per year, providing a great incentive.
3. The city and the waste management company (Recology) have several toolkits, resources, and online guides to help residents, small businesses, and commercial real estate developers meet the requirements of the ordinance.
There is no question that the only way to a sustainable future follows a path that eliminates waste. We must use and package less, and reuse and rebuild more. Once we reach that point, the only form of recycling we will need, and must prepare to execute, is organic material. San Francisco has shown that even in a large city, we can show respect for the materials that support our life in a cost effective manner...as long as we have the political will to do so. Programs that charge fees proportional to usage, respect living matter, create jobs (Recology employs between 900 and 1000 people in its recycling operations), and improve quality of life without additional cost should have buy-in from all areas of the political spectrum. I hope you will take a look at what San Francisco has done, and work to make that change happen in your neighborhood. Zero waste by 2020 is not a dream, it is an achievable imperative...and San Francisco has proven to us all that we can do it.
Monday, September 3, 2012
Request Monday (09/03/2012): What if Chicken Little is right?
"How can we talk about the importance of climate change when there are real economic issues facing the country right now? We need to focus on fixing the economy first, then in five to ten years, we will be in position to address issues at that time."
-Dan from Chicago-
The question has three answers, and you might be surprised to find out that two of them have nothing to do with the theoretical "tipping point" after which it will be too late to avoid some of the more cataclysmic consequences of climate change.
But first, we need to take a look at that tipping point. We currently are trending very closely to one of the more extreme prediction lines from the end of last century as shown by the graph below:
According to NOAA, the global mean temperature increase from 2000 to 2010 was 0.62 C. Matching this to the graph puts us on the high growth track, meaning that we could reach almost 1.00 C by 2030. If we wait until 2020 to start changing our habits, practices, and strategies, we will have built another generation of infrastructure (and encouraged another third of the world that is currently developing to build a generation of infrastructure) that pollutes the environment for the sake of economic growth. The cost of reversing that plan in ten years will be geometrically higher than doing it today, and the likelihood of having the social and political will to do it...even in the face of continued environemntal degradation...will be geometrically smaller. If we hit the 2 C increase in global temperature, we hit a theoretical "tipping point" after which we will create more positive feedback loops than negative, and temperature will increase regardless of any human action to abate it. These feedback loops include releasing of methane from beneath frozen arctic ice, continued acidification of the oceans, and reduced ability of plant life to absorb carbon. When driving at a high rate of speed toward what might be a cliff, no one accelerates to take their chances. At the very least you take your foot off the gas, and at best you start applying the break until you know what is coming. The good thing is that we do not need to follow the analogy with respect to our economy. The "braking" relates only to our actions ralative to polluting the environment and not to our employment of people.
The remaining answers all have to do with the myth that environmental action and economic growth must necessarily be mutually exclusive. The truth is that, 1. environmental protection actually makes markets freer, enabling consumers to more accurately reflect the cost of environmental damage in their purchasing decisions, and 2. because the primary methods of decreasing environmental damage involve employing people to provide services, we establish a stronger economy when we prioritize environmentally sound action.
We have already experienced several consequences of climate change brought about by human action relative to the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. From drought to severe weather, and the economic consequences of these events, we have seen record increases over the last decade.
Add to this, the cost of providing health insurance for those contracting asthma from the inhalation of particulate matter resulting from fossil fuel emissions, and we have a significant shifting of the costs of a product onto indirect payers. Using carbon taxes, catastrophic insurance products, and regulation, we can make sure that consumers know the true cost of a fuel source when they buy. This more closely approximates a free market, and will provide consumers with the best solution.
What are those solutions? Instead of using more and more energy to maintain quality of life, we can decrease energy use through efficiency. This means better maintenance of equipment and buildings, use of smarter technologies and higher performing appliances, and reducing our energy use. The first two strategies mean more people working, and the first idea...better maintenance...means more local people working. Every dollar spent on infrastructure and maintenance employs up to 12 more people than a dollar spent on fossil fuel energy production.
Once we have produced as efficient a system for energy consumption as possible, we can look towards smart technologies for energy production or energy service that make sense in the region. The Southwest and Southeast already employ significant amounts of solar energy on individual buildings, and the upper Midwest is starting to increase the deployment of geothermal energy storage systems. Both of these require little to no additional cost over the life of a building relative to fossil fuels, and need only the proper financial mechanism to take advantage of the environmental benefits without negatively impacting the owner's bottom line. Again, because these systems rely on local technicians to install and service, they create more jobs than fossil fuel energy purchases.
The final answer to the question of why act on the climate now (besides the environmental concerns if we do not, and the opportunity for job creation and creating a proper free market if we do) is that economies only reflect the priorities of a nation (or world) relative to the limited resources of that nation (or world). Whether we spend $100 a year on going out to the movies, or that same $100 on going out to dinner, the overall economy benefits. Businesses will respond to provide services that people want, and will compete to provide those services at a price point that people will purchase. Spending on environmental concerns is no different. The question becomes, "what do we NOT spend money on when we shift to spending more on solutions to reverse or mitigate climate change?" The answer is, we spend less on energy. We currently, in the US, spend over a trillion dollars annually on energy. If we shifted just 10% of that ($100 billion), we would produce an additional 1.3 million jobs in this country, lowering unemployment by at least 1% in the process.
In general, predictions of economic collapse from addressing environmental concerns well overshoot the economic gloom and undervalue the benefit to the economy. The biggest concern when switching priorities is whether we have the labor force to make the change happen smoothly and efficiently. Since the primary labor force needed is hands-on building and equipment people, and we have a significant number of them out of work, this seems like not only the best time to start fixing the environment, but also the opportune time to put our nation back to work with the support of consumers, and not big business or even the government.
-Dan from Chicago-
The question has three answers, and you might be surprised to find out that two of them have nothing to do with the theoretical "tipping point" after which it will be too late to avoid some of the more cataclysmic consequences of climate change.
But first, we need to take a look at that tipping point. We currently are trending very closely to one of the more extreme prediction lines from the end of last century as shown by the graph below:
According to NOAA, the global mean temperature increase from 2000 to 2010 was 0.62 C. Matching this to the graph puts us on the high growth track, meaning that we could reach almost 1.00 C by 2030. If we wait until 2020 to start changing our habits, practices, and strategies, we will have built another generation of infrastructure (and encouraged another third of the world that is currently developing to build a generation of infrastructure) that pollutes the environment for the sake of economic growth. The cost of reversing that plan in ten years will be geometrically higher than doing it today, and the likelihood of having the social and political will to do it...even in the face of continued environemntal degradation...will be geometrically smaller. If we hit the 2 C increase in global temperature, we hit a theoretical "tipping point" after which we will create more positive feedback loops than negative, and temperature will increase regardless of any human action to abate it. These feedback loops include releasing of methane from beneath frozen arctic ice, continued acidification of the oceans, and reduced ability of plant life to absorb carbon. When driving at a high rate of speed toward what might be a cliff, no one accelerates to take their chances. At the very least you take your foot off the gas, and at best you start applying the break until you know what is coming. The good thing is that we do not need to follow the analogy with respect to our economy. The "braking" relates only to our actions ralative to polluting the environment and not to our employment of people.
The remaining answers all have to do with the myth that environmental action and economic growth must necessarily be mutually exclusive. The truth is that, 1. environmental protection actually makes markets freer, enabling consumers to more accurately reflect the cost of environmental damage in their purchasing decisions, and 2. because the primary methods of decreasing environmental damage involve employing people to provide services, we establish a stronger economy when we prioritize environmentally sound action.
We have already experienced several consequences of climate change brought about by human action relative to the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. From drought to severe weather, and the economic consequences of these events, we have seen record increases over the last decade.
Add to this, the cost of providing health insurance for those contracting asthma from the inhalation of particulate matter resulting from fossil fuel emissions, and we have a significant shifting of the costs of a product onto indirect payers. Using carbon taxes, catastrophic insurance products, and regulation, we can make sure that consumers know the true cost of a fuel source when they buy. This more closely approximates a free market, and will provide consumers with the best solution.
What are those solutions? Instead of using more and more energy to maintain quality of life, we can decrease energy use through efficiency. This means better maintenance of equipment and buildings, use of smarter technologies and higher performing appliances, and reducing our energy use. The first two strategies mean more people working, and the first idea...better maintenance...means more local people working. Every dollar spent on infrastructure and maintenance employs up to 12 more people than a dollar spent on fossil fuel energy production.
Once we have produced as efficient a system for energy consumption as possible, we can look towards smart technologies for energy production or energy service that make sense in the region. The Southwest and Southeast already employ significant amounts of solar energy on individual buildings, and the upper Midwest is starting to increase the deployment of geothermal energy storage systems. Both of these require little to no additional cost over the life of a building relative to fossil fuels, and need only the proper financial mechanism to take advantage of the environmental benefits without negatively impacting the owner's bottom line. Again, because these systems rely on local technicians to install and service, they create more jobs than fossil fuel energy purchases.
The final answer to the question of why act on the climate now (besides the environmental concerns if we do not, and the opportunity for job creation and creating a proper free market if we do) is that economies only reflect the priorities of a nation (or world) relative to the limited resources of that nation (or world). Whether we spend $100 a year on going out to the movies, or that same $100 on going out to dinner, the overall economy benefits. Businesses will respond to provide services that people want, and will compete to provide those services at a price point that people will purchase. Spending on environmental concerns is no different. The question becomes, "what do we NOT spend money on when we shift to spending more on solutions to reverse or mitigate climate change?" The answer is, we spend less on energy. We currently, in the US, spend over a trillion dollars annually on energy. If we shifted just 10% of that ($100 billion), we would produce an additional 1.3 million jobs in this country, lowering unemployment by at least 1% in the process.
In general, predictions of economic collapse from addressing environmental concerns well overshoot the economic gloom and undervalue the benefit to the economy. The biggest concern when switching priorities is whether we have the labor force to make the change happen smoothly and efficiently. Since the primary labor force needed is hands-on building and equipment people, and we have a significant number of them out of work, this seems like not only the best time to start fixing the environment, but also the opportune time to put our nation back to work with the support of consumers, and not big business or even the government.
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