Do little steps really help?

The sum total of doing little things to help our environment may lead to little change, argue a group of Australian professors writing in The Conversation, however, much as Charlie and I have argued, we need to make big changes and those big changes will take big action.  Read the piece in The Conversation and discuss, over dinner, what you think.

Gilding on The Great Disruption

So I’ve done it: I finally managed to finish Paul Gilding’s eye-opening book (and, given how busy I am just now, managed to post this!), “The Great Disruption:  Why the ClimateCrisis Will Bring on the End of Shopping and the Birth of a New World.”  You might remember I referred to Paul’s TED talk a few weeks ago. Well, after watching that, I immediately bought the book and now, while travelling, have finally managed to finish it.

Um:  it makes you think.

In the book, Gilding builds a convincing case that humanity is on a collision course for a Great Disruption in the next 10-30 years.  He argues that our collective ecological footprint is 140% of the Earth’s carrying capacity and that this alone means that we’re living in a seriously, unsustainable deficit.  Indeed, it’s not just this that we’re over-using, but all the major life-sustaining natural resources including water, pollution-free air, ecosystem services, and of course fossil fuels (to name a few).  He argues that we’ve passed the point where we’re going to be able to avoid some serious climate and environmental disruption and he points out that at some point we’ll all recognize—probably through some horrific environmental event—that we’ve got to do something. 

Once this happens, Gilding argues that humanity will mobilize resources and efforts, much as the West did, most recently in World War II, and we will collectively declare war against climate change.  We will lose many millions (or billions) of people and likely more than 50% of the biodiversity on earth. We will suffer great political upheaval.  It will be bad, but, he argues, it must happen because we have done nothing to stop it. 

However, once we decide to act, we will limit the Earth’s temperature rise to 1°C by rapid and wide-scale cuts in carbon use. We will do this under duress because we must; the alternatives are even worse. His war on Carbon will reduce carbon massively over 5 years.  It includes (and I quote liberally from pages 135ff):

•Cutting deforestation and other logging by 50%

•Closing 1000 dirty coal power plants within 5 years

•Rationing electricity, ‘getting dressed for the war’ and rapidly driving increased efficiently

•Retrofitting 1000 coal power plants with carbon capture technology

•Erecting a wind turbine or solar power plant in every town

•Creating huge wind and solar farms in suitable locations

•Letting no waste go to waste

•Rationing the use of dirty cars to cut transportation emissions by 50%

•Preparing for biopower with Carbon-Capture-Sequestration

•Stranding half of the world’s aircraft

•Capturing or burning methane

•Moving away from climate-unfriendly protein

•Binding 1 gigaton of CO2 in the soil

•Launching a government- and community-led “shop less, live more” campaign

After the first five years, there are even more things that must be done to capture carbon and continue to reduce it so that we’re living in a ‘net-zero carbon world’.  Sound draconian; the options are even worse…even more massive human fatalities and increased suffering.

He argues that humans are really good at getting together to change when real change is needed and that our mostly to-date inefficient attempts at international treaties to control carbon will quickly scale up and start working when they have to, but unfortunately, not before.

Yet, his story does not end there.  We will have to reinvent our lives and for this he sees great promise.

I quote from page 185:

“But in telling that whole story, we have a ways to go yet.  It may seem like a fair bit to cope with—the economic crisis of the Great Disruption, followed by the one-degree war and the complete transformation of the global economy to zero net carbon, all happening in parallel to a global realignment of geopolitical power, accompanied by widespread military and social conflict from ecosystem breakdown.  All that, however, is just act one.”

One really good insight from his view of the future is that solar power is equalizing and equitable. Solar power is somewhat uniquely equalitarian:  you don’t need a power grid to have solar power thus it can be an important (and powerful, excuse the pun) way to help folks in developing countries with limited infrastructure.  And, if developing countries don’t have to compete for oil and gas, solar energy will help them develop even faster. 

Gilding also summarizes evidence (that I’ve discussed in the book and blog) about why we’ll need to end consumerism, end a growth-based economy (he notes that even classical economists always viewed a stable future where growth ended and a stable-state economy was created), and make the world a more equitable world by cutting income disparity.  Partly, this will come through those with income having to earn less because the economic system is fundamentally broken. But he paints a promising picture (more time for family, more time to relax, better income equality). 

I’m not sure I buy all of this.  Frankly, it seems to be a group selected argument to hope that we’ll raise up and cooperate, rather than get stuck in a selfish tragedy of the commons.  If major religions can’t get it together now and help end poverty, why will we do it in the future? Gilding says we must, there are no other ethical options, but we’ve ignored massive poverty to date…why will the future be any different?

Gilding makes his living as a business consultant and he’s well versed in economics.  Thus, he develops his argument about how executives should re-focus to capitalize on the total re-organization of our world’s economy. He’s not a quack; this book is worth reading and thinking about. He has the ears of business and economic world leaders.  And he offers promising suggestions on business plans that will make the world a better place.

Discussion Questions

Read this book.  Share the TED talk.  Discuss his thesis.  Don’t believe it?  What does your future look like? How will you prepare for it?  How will we end poverty and income disparity?  How will we detoxify the earth?

It's gonna get hot!

The newest bad news is that in a report published the other day (25 March 2012) in Nature Geosciences, Daniel Rowlands and colleagues develop a more-sophisticated climate model than has been used in the past and suggest that a 1.4-3 °C increase in temperature is likely under a 'mid-range forcing model' by 2050 (there's a lot of press on this, e.g., USA Today).  That's not too far away and that is an amount of temperature increase that is more consistent with the 'no mitigation' scenario developed by the IPCC. In other words, whatever we're doing now isn't going to have much of a future impact and it's getting hotter faster than we thought it was.


In a line, this is a real problem.


A 3°C hotter world is much hotter world that will be characterized by more poverty, more suffering, and more conflict.  Want to know that that might look like?  Look no further than a mega-city in a third world country (Karachi, Pakistan, for instance...).  Do you want your future (or the future of much more of the earth) be like Karachi?  I don't.


A 3°C hotter world is also a world that isn't going to just cool down and 're-set itself' if we do sort out our carbon addiction.  It's going to continue to get warmer for hundreds or thousands of years.  The time lags built into the climatic system are genuinely scary and have convinced me that now is the time to act.  Everything we do now matters.  A lot.  It's simply not right for us to guarantee future generations a future filled with suffering and conflict.


A 3°C world will be drastically different, less biodiverse, and less compatible with our current lifestyles.  And lifestyles are at the crux of the problem of reducing the likelihood of this happening.  We all want to maintain our current lifestyles. So, got concerns about not changing your lifestyle?  Well, a 3°C hotter world will change it for you!


Thus, I read this report with extreme sadness. Indeed, I've not been writing much recently because I've been kinda depressed about the scale of the problems we have to solve and how most of the indictors I've been reading suggest we're not even trying to do so.  We simply have to work together to create the momentum to reduce or eliminate carbon consumption--and fast. We simply have to work together to create a more sustainable future that is driven by solar power (as I've written before, solar is genuinely renewable and should not have as many negative effects when we scale up, like wind or other forms of renewable energy). 


The irony:  a lot of people will get really wealthy creating and distributing the technology that's needed to re-set our lives and lifestyles.  Jobs will be created.  Lifestyles will be supported.  So why don't we all agree that this is both the right and a productive thing to work towards?


Discussion topic
What are the impediments you see towards convincing others that climate change is a moral issue that requires us to act now?

Buzz kill about sustainability from Ed Barry & William Rees

I received this from a colleague and am reprinting it in its entirety because I think it's essential for us to come to grips with the concept of 'sustainability'.  The discussion topic, after reading this, are how do we shape our future without falling into the 'sustainability is easy' trap.  Because, if you really buy into what they suggest, developing a truly sustainable future will require quite a bit of work and requires a sea-change in our attitudes and desires about our lifestyles.

On the Use and Misuse of the Concept of Sustainability: Including

Population and Resource Macro-Balancing in the Sustainability Dialog.

A paper for the 8th International Conference on Environmental,

Cultural, Economic, and Social Sustainability

Mr. Ed Barry - The Population Institute, Washington D.C., USA

Dr. William Rees - University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada

I. Resource overshoot - today's global reality:

A. The current scale of human economic activity on Earth is already

excessive; the human enterprise is in a state of unsustainable

'overshoot.' By this we mean that the consumption and dissipation of

energy and material resources exceed the regenerative and

assimilative capacity of supportive ecosystems. Many critical stocks

of 'natural capital' are in decline and global waste sinks are filled

to overflowing. Business as usual for today's global human enterprise

is clearly unsustainable. Any society that is living by depleting its

capital assets is unsustainable by definition.

Resource overshoot can be demonstrated empirically in at least four ways:

1. Direct observation of the degradation of resource ecosystems

(e.g., marine fisheries and tropical rain forests) and the depletion

of non-renewable resources (e.g., conventional petroleum and various

industrial minerals and metals);

2. Direct observation of the gross pollution of major ecosystems and

the global commons (e.g., expanding ocean anoxic zones and the

accumulation of atmospheric green-house gases [carbon dioxide is the

largest waste product of industrial economies]);

3. Macro-economic analysis that compares traditional GDP with

indicators that incorporate physical assessments and appropriate

valuation of natural capital stocks and pollution damage costs (e.g.,

the 'Genuine Progress Indicator' or the 'Index of Sustainable

Economic Welfare');

4. Ecological footprint analysis, a quantitative method that compares

human demand for bio-capacity (ecosystem services) with sustainably

available supply. The aggregate human eco-footprint is already

approximately 50% larger than the available bio-capacity. Moreover,

demand is increasing and supply is in decline. How is this possible?

Remember, at present, the growth of the human enterprise is being

unsustainably funded by permanently depleting critical natural capital stocks.

B. Climate change, fresh water shortfalls, biodiversity loss, food

shortages (and price increases), and global oil supply 'peaking'

along with increasing energy costs are all additional symptoms of

ecological overshoot.

C. Achieving a positive balance between production in nature and

consumption by humans is not merely one of many 'options,' it is an

obligatory requirement for sustainability. We must eliminate

overshoot as a prerequisite to preserving social justice, creating

intergenerational equity and securing a future for global

civilization. Otherwise we will continue to undermine the Earth's

natural resource assets, which will cause hardships and suffering for

future generations of life on the planet.

D. All nations are responsible for integrating physical assessments

of their natural capital assets (renewable, replenishable and

non-renewable 'resources') into their systems of national accounts

for policy and management purposes. Overcoming overshoot and

adherence to the strong sustainability criterion requires that we

maintain sufficient supplies of natural capital per capita to ensure

an adequate flow of 'natural income' (consumption) and life-support

services indefinitely into the future. Note that if populations are

increasing, either natural capital stocks must also increase or

average quality of life will decline.

     Bio-physical resource sustainability must be evaluated in an

integrated manner, and periodic national resource 'balance sheet'

evaluations should be used to inform policy decision making. Resource

Sustainability Evaluation and Reporting (SER) must be adopted by

national governments and supported by international institutions, as

an appropriate response to today's fundamental reality of global

resource overshoot.

E. Technological optimism and techno-fixes do not provide viable

solutions to the challenge of global resource overshoot. On the

contrary, historical data show that technological gains stimulate

economic growth and enable further exploitation of resources rather

than induce conservation.

F. Any sustainability assessment and corrective policies must include

consideration of all factors contributing to overshoot, including

population numbers and growth, our socially-constructed consumer

life-styles, and gross social inequity. For example, empowering women

and expanding access to family planning services, being essential to

preventing unwanted pregnancies and achieving sustainability, must be

part of the global sustainable development dialogs and solution.

II. SUSTAINABILITY - Conceptual ambiguities:

"Sustainable economic growth" is an oxymoron. Historically, rising

incomes have invariably been accompanied by rising material

consumption despite (or because of) technological advances. Clearly,

since the world is already in 'overshoot' further increases in energy

and material throughput will only exacerbate the situation. Can we

realistically expect to continue growing the material economy without

compromising both our own future prospects and those of future generations?

"Sustainable development" is not necessarily an oxymoron as long as

development is not equated with growth. 'Development' means

qualitative improvement or 'getting better' whereas growth means

quantitative accretion or 'getting bigger'. Development can obviously

proceed without growth but it is possible to have growth without

development. Indicators of development include improving

opportunities for personal development, falling unemployment rates,

decreasing poverty, greater income security, a narrowing income gap

(greater social equity), falling rates of alcohol and drug addiction,

improving mental health indicators, etc. By such measures as these,

the considerable GDP growth of the past few decades in the US, Canada

and other rich countries has been accompanied by regressive de-development.

"Sustainable city;" what does this wide-spread phrase mean? We assert

that it is, in fact, meaningless as currently employed. In an

integrated globalizing world, no sub-system-no individual, no city no

country-can achieve sustainability on its own. Even a city with

minimal auto use, exemplary public transit, renewable energy supplies

and life-styles that require only an equitable share of global

bio-capacity will not be unscathed if the rest of the world maintains

its unsustainable tack. Despite its best efforts, this exemplary city

will eventually succumb to climate change, rising prices, resource

scarcity, civil unrest and geopolitical instability. This reality

underscores that (un)sustainability is a collective problem demanding

collective solutions and therefore an unprecedented level of

international cooperation in the implementation of difficult policy

choices for sustainability. In short, we have entered an era in which

the future of global civilization can be assured only through "mutual

coercion mutually agreed upon" (to use Garrett Hardin's classic phrasing).

"Sustainable growth in businesses, jobs, and the economy;" this

politically correct mantra continues to ignore the reality that

resource goods and services are required for all human societal and

economic activity, and that the Earth's capacity to supply these

resources is finite. The political response to this criticism is

technology advancement and the "decoupling" of our economic activity

from resource demands. But technology optimism is, in itself, a

conceptual ambiguity.

"Technology advancement" is the means that humanity can deploy to

continue economic growth, and thus improve overall global

prosperity.   Yet the historical record does not bear this out (see above).

"There is no conflict between economic growth and environmental

quality" or "there is no conflict between a growing economy and

nature." This is an obligatory mantra uttered by almost all

politicians in their efforts to reconcile the irreconcilable; it is

patently untrue. As previously noted, economic growth (rising

disposable income) has historically stimulated increased personal

consumption. This results in increased energy and material throughput

and consequent ecological damage. The reason is simple: the human

enterprise is a growing sub-system of a non-growing finite ecosphere.

Any diversion of energy and material resources to maintain and grow

more humans and their 'furniture' is irreversibly unavailable to

non-human species (what we get, they don't). Biodiversity declines as

humans displace other species from their habitats and appropriate

'primary production' (nature's goods and services) that would

otherwise support other species. Meanwhile, the increased

production/consumption for humans adds to the pollution load on

natural ecosystems. As noted, these trends can actually be

accelerated by technological improvements that increase access to

resources or improve efficiency (both of which tend to lower costs and prices).

"Shifting to a knowledge-based or service-based economy will reduce

environmental impacts." This is a common illusion voiced to support

structural economic change and continued economic growth; it is

patently untrue. The reasons are simple. By 'knowledge-based economy'

people generally mean an economy driven by high-end services such as

engineering, information technology, financial services, etc. These

activities are often seen as having less direct ecological impact

than primary and secondary sector activities such as logging, mining

and manufacturing. Herein lies the illusion. High-end service jobs

pay much higher incomes than employment in the low-end material

economy. Participants in the knowledge-based economy therefore have

bigger houses, cars, flat-screen TVs and generally consume more than

primary and secondary sector employees (see previous point). They

therefore have much larger per capita ecological footprints than

workers in the basic economy; those countries with the largest

high-end service sectors have the largest national eco-footprints.

     There is another dimension to the illusion. The structural

shift to a knowledge/service-based economy is invariably accompanied

by the migration of manufacturing to low-wage developing countries

that generally have lower environmental standards (or good standards

that are not enforced). These countries (e.g., China) then sell much

of their manufacturing output to wealthier consumer societies. Hence,

the ecological impact per unit consumption in knowledge-based

economies may increase with the total volume of consumption.

good news?

A new study suggests that more Americans believe that humans are causing global warming and that this is an issue.


Discussion topic:
OK, now what do we do?

Forks over knives

Just watched the film Forks Over Knives.  Worth watching because it argues that a whole foods, plant based diet enhances health, and reduces the growth of cancers and coronary heart disease.  A compelling 'natural experiment' discussed in the film:  when Germany invaded Denmark during the war, meat and milk was taken to feed German troops.  During this several year period, deaths from cardiovascular disease plummeted.  After the war, it went back up.  I'd like to see the actual studies underlying the film (many are correlative but there are some highly suggestive correlations), but as I've summarized in some of my books, you can't really believe the nutritional advice from the Department of Agriculture because, as Marion Nestle writes, they're corrupted by industrial lobbyists. 


At least one thing resonated with me while I was watching the film:  I know that we grow cancer cells in 'soups' of animal protein.  Kinda makes sense that protein in our diet may do the same thing in our body...


I met someone a few weeks ago who had cut out all animal protein he didn't catch himself (he fished, crabbed and spear fished a lot) and ate mostly plants and no oils.  I'm going to start using less oil (we eat mostly plants but have a lot of olive oil*) and see how that make me feel (I feel pretty good now anyway...).


Discussion topics
What changes in your diet might you make to enhance health? 
What would happen if you ate less meat?
What would happen if you reduced processed oils in your diet?


*Over dinner last night a friend pointed out that there are some studies that talk about the PROTECTIVE properties of olive oil...you know, sometimes it's difficult to know what to do...

deliberate dishonesty is not scientific

Peter Gleick, a well-known climate scientist and activist, has been caught engaging in a deception that duped the Heartland Institute into revealing how it supported climate skeptics.  While many well-meaning scientists are very frustrated about unscrupulous conduct by climate change deniers, I feel that it's essential to maintain a high moral standard and indeed, a transparent scientific standard.  Scientists who engage in dishonesty only play into skeptics that assert that the scientific process is filled with dishonesty and fraud.  I know that the scientific process is self-correcting and that dishonesty and fraud are not tolerated.  


Discussion topics
Why and how is the scientific process 'self-correcting'?
Contrast this with an advocacy-based approach adopted by climate-change deniers?

scaling up renewable energy

I've been reading a lot recently about the concerns over scaling up renewable energy. New Hampshire sized pieces of land might have to be used for wind farms to produce just a small portion of our current electricity needs. Importantly, scaling up wind production to that scale will have negative ecological effects (birds and bats routinely get killed in wind turbines) and might even alter the energy balance on Earth!  


Again, the 'number' problem rears its ugly head.  We simply have to produce too much energy to support current populations and lifestyles.


However, this realization tells us that we must focus on those sources of energy that are truly renewable and solar is the biggie here. 


But what happens when we fill our deserts with solar panels? What happens when we build large-scale solar plants?  


Why not create a distributed energy system by ensuring that solar panels are on everyone's roofs? This is an idea that must be incentivized, and quickly, for several reasons. 


First, it builds in resilience.  Creating resilient communities is important because they will protect us against larger-scale crashes.  


Second, it uses existing real-estate rather than taking otherwise good (or valuable) land and converting it to an industrial solar array.  


Third, it sends an educational message:  we're all part of the solution.


Discussion Topics
What would it cost to get solar panels on your roof?  What impediments are there to doing this?  

Keystone XL permit denied

I've just read that the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline that will bring tar sand oil down to the US for processing has been denied from the Obama administration.  I (personally) think this is an important issue and the right decision for many reasons (including the facts that it's very 'dirty' oil, that it is wrecking the environment where it is 'mined', that we need to generally use LESS oil and not feed our addiction, etc.).  I wish it were once and for all, but it's a decision that is likely to be revisited (just wait till Iran blocks the Straits of Hormuz!).


However, to take a different perspective getting less oil from a stable neighbor does make us rely more (in the short term) for overseas oil which can be quite volatile and has (arguably) led to wars over oil.  I believe that we must wean ourselves from oil (and other fossil fuels) much sooner rather than later to try to reduce the magnitude of catastrophic climate change. 


Discussion question
How will we bridge the gap and work towards true energy security where much of energy comes from clean and sustainable sources?  What changes will you need to make in your life to facilitate this?  What are the benefits of doing it sooner rather than later?

Carl Pope on reducing corporate influence in elections...

I think that corporate support of elections (which has been fully legalized by Citizen's United) is one of the more dangerous challenges to American democracy.  Carl Pope, the former director of the Sierra Club (now a blogger for the Huffington Post) suggests that we could create two classes of corporations--one that gets a tax break for not being involved in politics, and a second that pays higher taxes for having the option to get involved in politics.  What an interesting idea!  And one that would allow citizens, not corporations, support the politics that influence their lives.   I was sent this and can't find the original source, but I'm posting this as I received it (I've bolded a key paragraph about his proposal below).  Regardless of your political bent, I hope that (if you're an American citizen) you'll think about this idea and bring it up at your next dinner party.

Taking the Initiative

January 11, 2012

'Citizens United' or Not, We Aren't Helpless

San Francisco -- However much pleasure President Obama's supporters

may gleefully derive from watching his Republican adversaries

carpet-bomb each other through their "Super-PACs," what is far more

revealing than whether Santorum or Gingrich is eventually the last

opponent left standing up to Mitt Romney is how they are going to get

there. If our previous campaign financing system was, effectively, an

oligarchy of the 1%, the new one is an oligarchy of the .01% -- the

people who really control American politics today are the fewer than

10,000 people able to control closely held corporate assets. This is

an oligarchy smaller by far than that which governed George III's

England, reminiscent more of a state like Pakistan with its 22 families.

The respective fates of Rick Perry and Ron Paul do show that

mega-money is not everything in today's politics. And it may be that

a sitting incumbent president can raise enough money for his own

campaign to remain competitive when he combines those funds with the

significant resources of incumbency -- so I am not predicting that

the wave of Super-PAC funds Obama will face is going to determine the

presidential outcome.

But any highly ambitious American politician, whatever their original

motivation, values, or ideology, now understands that the path to

high office lies in cultivating super-wealthy supporters with strong

corporate power bases.

Clearly, this is terrifying many people, on both sides of the

ideological divide, and perhaps in private angering them. But it's

surprising how little real energy has gathered to fix the problem --

perhaps because the conventional narrative is that nothing short of a

constitutional amendment can fix the problem.

A constitutional amendment, of course, is the best solution -- and

<http://action.sierraclub.org/site/R?i=rL1K436vR9VvmF1Sdvcf8w>important

groundwork is being done.  But while congressional leaders like

Senators Tom Udall and

<http://action.sierraclub.org/site/R?i=hq-TarOxbqLpglFbEGk0xw>Bernie

Sanders, Representative Donna Edwards, and organizations like Common

Cause are pushing for one, they are not getting the public tailwind

they need -- even though polls show the idea is wildly popular. The

road to an amendment lies through either Congress or state

legislatures, both of which seem controlled by the plutocracy the

Supreme Court has created, and there is certainly no short-term fix

through an amendment.

But there are other things that can be done -- quickly, and

effectively -- that can create the groundswell that an eventual

amendment will need. An important one took place last month, when

<http://action.sierraclub.org/site/R?i=EmqqA6AsYi-RtG_IzeBgzQ>the

Montana Supreme Court basically said to the U.S. Supreme Court,

<http://action.sierraclub.org/site/R?i=78jCyL0-xoSQ0s-oB0oygA>"take

your Citizens United opinion and shove it."

Obama has one important tool to move the ball as well.

<http://action.sierraclub.org/site/R?i=3Tnf_BYCIrGK_wITpK-wFw>He can

require that federal contractors and their executives disclose

all<http://action.sierraclub.org/site/R?i=3Tnf_BYCIrGK_wITpK-wFw> of

their political giving, not just the smaller gifts to individual

candidate campaigns that federal law currently requires. An executive

order to that effect has been drafted, and there is no legal barrier.

"It's simple -- any company that is paid with taxpayer dollars should

be required to disclose political

contributions<http://action.sierraclub.org/site/R?i=_RivcHZFN8WHRocaNhVlaA>,"

said Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif, who has pushed for the White House to

issue the order. "With public dollars come public responsibilities,

and I hope President Obama will issue his executive order right away."

A huge swathe of the economy -- most of the major players in

mega-campaign giving -- is dependent in whole or part on federal

dollars. Think about it: Defense contractors, oil companies, computer

and telecommunications firms, highway and transportation contractors,

auto companies, airlines, computer and technology manufacturers, even

paper mills. And what motivates many of these players -- weapons

manufacturers, for example -- to give so heavily in federal elections

is precisely to keep their flow of contracting dollars robust.

Contractors get 15 percent of the federal budget (and an even greater

percentage of the discretionary spending), which amounts to 4 percent

of the total economy.

When Congress has attempted to limit campaign spending -- during the

McCain-Feingold debates for example -- the right-wing response was

invariable, "let sunshine be the disinfectant." Disclose, no more.

But when Congress tried to require disclosure of Super-PAC

contributions,

<http://action.sierraclub.org/site/R?i=ZACTyWYF7JBc3D_CkZtMGQ>the

Republican leadership mobilized to stop such legislation and last

year even attached legislative riders to ensure that Obama did not

act to require disclosure from contractors. But those riders have now

expired -- nothing but a reluctance to rock-the-boat prevents the

president from acting today. But there's not much organized public

pressure on him to do so. My guess is that even the Tea Party would

welcome a serious demand for contractor disclosure.

But we shouldn't, and needn't, stop with contractors and disclosure.

Congress has the power to fix our campaign finance system, Supreme

Court or no. This Congress won't. But if progressives and the

anti-corruption wing of the Tea Party joined forces this fall to

demand it, the next Congress could.

The solution lies in -- tax cuts.

Non-profit corporations have long paid a substantial tax for the

privilege of engaging in politics. Tax-deductible nonprofits

(charitable c3's) can do nothing to influence an election and can

lobby in only a minimal way. Tax-exempt but not tax-deductible c4

orgs can lobby to an unlimited degree. They also can engage in

politics, as long as it does not become their primary purpose -- but

they face a substantial tax penalty if they do so. So the

constitutional principal is established -- Congress could set

different tax rates for corporations based on their political

involvement or lack thereof.

Why not create two classes of corporations. One, let's call it

"enterprise corporations," would stay out of politics. Not only would

they not give corporate funds to campaign committees like the

Super-PACs, but these corporations also would not use their funds to

create corporate PACs, the other bane of our system. They would not

pay dues to organizations like the Chamber of Commerce, which uses

those dues for politics. They would engage in free enterprise --

business, not politics. And, as a result, they would have a lower

corporate income tax rate than the second group of corporations, call

them "advocacy corporations." These corporations could do all the

things the Supreme Court has guaranteed them over the years --

everything short of explicit bribery of politicians. But, in

exchange, they would pay a significantly higher corporate tax rate

than enterprise corporations.

There would be no need for a confiscatory tax level for influence

corporations. Corporate shareholders would find quite appealing the

idea that they could simultaneously save the money they currently

spend on politics and qualify for a lower tax rate. Yes, truly

closely held entities like Koch Industries might choose to pay the

higher taxes. There would be advocacy corporations. But we would all

know who they were, and they wouldn't be able to hijack the rest of

American business to go along with them through the Chamber of

Commerce. Most major corporations would welcome the chance to get out

of the influence game and focus on their core businesses.

Indeed, the CEO of Starbucks, Howard Schultz. has

<http://action.sierraclub.org/site/R?i=rtmgZrLVmP4cNEF3tysClg>created

a movement of corporations that are going to refuse to give campaign

money even without the tax sweetener that I am proposing.

What I find most appealing about this idea, which was first generated

several years ago by Damon Silvers, a friend of mine, is that it

doesn't require a supermajority in the Congress (well, leaving aside

the usual filibuster problem in the Senate.) It doesn't require

action by two-thirds of the legislatures. It can happen quickly if

during this campaign cycle we generate enough grassroots energy to

make candidates stand up for an end to corporate influence buying.

Our democracy is, truly, at stake. And we can no longer hide our

inactivity behind the excuse that "there is nothing to be done."

You are here: the oil journey

The Post Carbon Institute has put out a new powerpoint/video that's pretty compelling. It's called You Are Here: The Oil Journey and is about our future with less oil.  Watch it with friends and neighbors and discuss!

How we are motivated

Drop the 'e' in emotion and you've got motion.  Add a few letters and you've got motivated.  Any way you look at it, emotions and motivation are closely related. And they should be because they're all about motivating action. 


A few weeks ago I read Drew Westen's "The Political Brain" which argues that the way to people's votes (which in some sense is a way to get people to act) is through their emotions.  Faulting the Democratic Party's logic of fact-based reasoning he writes, in the lead up to the election that got President Obama elected, that elections are won by telling compelling stories that engage people's hearts, not their logical minds.


Transferred to thinking about how we can create a more sustainable future, we need to work even harder to create compelling, emotional images of the good, the bad, and the ugly.  I still remember "The Day After"--a post-apocalyptic film about what happens after a nuclear exchange.  Presented on TV during the height of the Cold War, these horrible images seemed to motivate even more people to urge our politicians to shift us from the brink.  I think we need more films like this.  Realistic ones, not those where the Earth freezes over in hours, but ones that engage our senses and force us to think about choices.  Fear motivates us all.


We also need create positive emotions and positive images.  There ARE ways to engineer softer landings and we need to show folks that these ARE possible; if only we work.  But, if Westen is correct, data alone will not be the solution to our problems; vibrant imagery that captures our senses will.


Discussion Questions
What captures your senses?  What sorts of books, films, discussions do you think can help nudge us to a better future?

The news is not so good...

OK, I've been depressed recently.  The failure of Durban and a quite scary article I read in Grist the other week about the Brutal Logic of Climate Change has silenced me...or at least made me want to write recipes.  


I was talking with Charlie the other night, who gave me an appropriate reproach for the tuna recipe!  He jokingly suggested I come up with what I'll call an extinction tasting menu:  Chilean sea bass, swordfish, and tuna.  I might take him up on that...


But seriously, you read the Brutal Logic of Climate Change and not come away depressed.  I think it's in times like this that we need to build even stronger personal and community relations.  It's in times like this that we really need to sit down and roll up our sleeves.  It's in times like this that we really do need to have a dinner party. 


I don't say this trivially.  We all must talk about this brutal logic.  Our society has done nothing to stop the rise of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere and there is essentially no foreseeable way to keep the increased global temperature to 2°C.  My, what a slight warmer world you think, but don't forget, the last ice age was *only* 2-3°C cooler!  And, we're going to be much hotter than 2°C.  Where?  We're not sure.  But uncontrollable physical processes are more likely to take off when we exceed say 4-6C.  


In this holiday season, talk about all those things you're not supposed to...talk about the societal changes we're going to have to make so that we can all prosper and live rewarding lives.  Share your fears (I have a bucket full of them) and share your hopes (which, David Orr reminds us is a verb that means to roll up your sleeves and get to work!).

What if cooperation doesn’t scale up to nation states?

Here’s a bad thought.  What if cooperation doesn’t scale.  What if what works for interpersonal relationships doesn’t work for nation states. 

Why did I wake up with a start thinking about this?  Well, we know that (as I’ve written about here and elsewhere before) that cooperation requires some degree of recognition and memory (you need to identify those who cooperate and those who don’t) and you need some mechanisms for incentivizing cooperation, detecting those who do not cooperate and then and punishing those who cheat.  All of this can, when properly, employed lead to stable, cooperative systems.

However, what works at for individuals or small groups may be more difficult to scale up to nation states.  And this woke me up with a jolt because the major environmental problems we face now are ALL about cooperation between sovereign states. 

Consider the whole Euro-zone crisis.  Just because Germany has it’s house in good financial order doesn’t mean that they can force other Euro-zone countries to comply—even when the cost of failure is an economic collapse that is too terrifying to consider.  Or consider the screams for protectionism that accompany each economic downturn.  These make sense in that politicians must represent their constituents, but again, when the scale of our problems is global, we need new political mechanisms that answer to the Earth to create this global cooperation.

Discussion questions

Given that many claim the UN as a governing body has failed to create the sort of system required to manage global environmental problems, what are the elements of the UN that have been responsible for this failure.  After identifying those shortcomings, then discuss what attributes you’d want for an effective international cooperative system charged with helping us prevent a catastrophic environmental collapse.

Paying for Ecosystem Services

Nature provides us benefits and the idea of trying to quantify these benefits occupies the days of environmental economists.  

In a fascinating essay in the 4 November 2011 Science, Ann Kinzig and colleagues write:

"The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment concluded that over the past 50 years, 60% of all ecosystem services (ES) had declined as a direct result of the growth of agriculture, forestry, fisheries, industries, and urban areas ( 1). This is not surprising: We get what we pay for. Markets exist for the products of agriculture, aquaculture, and forestry. But the benefits of watershed protection ( 2), habitat provision ( 3), pest and disease regulation ( 4), climatic regulation ( 5), and hazard protection ( 6) are largely unpriced. Because existing markets seldom refl ect the full social cost of production, we have incorrect measures of the scarcity of some ES and no measures for the rest."

They go on to discuss how we must do more than simply have governments buy land or protect watersheds if we want to preserve these ecosystem services and they go on to highlight trade-offs that emerge when trying to protect the variety of ecosystem services.   For instance, if one country reduces carbon production with a cap-and-trade scheme, manufacturing may shift to another place. Incentives to produce biofuels, may cause rainforest destruction that reduces biodiversity.  And, creating corridors to connect various patches of habitat may increase disease risk caused by wild animals encountering domestic animals.

Fascinating reading and the stimulus for a variety of dinner party conversations...

Two catalytic moments

I think it's reasonable to say that because of global warming, I was able to hang with David Orr.  Turns out that I should have still be in Belize but had to evacuate my class ("cut and run", in my vocab!) to avoid a hurricane that was building and bearing down on our remote caye in the Caribbean.  

But stepping back a moment, more and stronger hurricanes are expected because of global warming.  Why?  Because hurricanes form and strengthen over hot water and the Caribbean has been exceptionally hot recently.  Hurricanes are not to be messed with.  While NOAA does a wonderful job trying to predict their tracks, they're somewhat unpredictable and can be devastating (remember Katrina?).  A year before our class, the island we were on had a direct hit from a category 1 and this caused a lot of damage (in addition to washing plastic junk all over the island).  I was told that in 1961 a hurricane hit the island, cut it up and killed people.  Shape of things to come?  You betcha. 

I've already written about the second catalytic event: watching the reef bleach.  I still can't shake the image of swimming over a reasonably healthy coral reef one day and the next swimming through slimy water filled with zozanthellae.  Turns out that we didn't lose the whole reef but two weeks after the bleaching event, the corals that lost their zozanthellae, had not recovered.  Such damage may be cumulative.  Lose a bit this year.  A bit more next year.  Before you know it, no reef.  And this ratcheting down of the reef condition illustrates something called 'shifting baselines'.  

Shifting baselines are seen when we look at something now and use that as our reference for 'natural', 'healthy', or 'quality'. The trouble is if you go back far enough, what we see now is anything but natural, healthy or quality.

What can be done?  Help create that sustainable future I've been writing and blogging about.  Talk about catalytic events you've had.  And, consider sharing them here!

Fast for 7 billion?

On Monday, 31 October 2011, I suggest we consider having a foodless dinner party.  Foodless?  Why?  

Because it is on this day that the UN will 'celebrate' the birth of the 7 billionth living person on Earth.  7 billion is a lot of people on this crowded planet and rather than celebrating, we should probably mourn and prepare for a future with less.  

7 billion people who hope to have a life that depends on resources (a synonym for 'development' or 'an advanced lifestyle') will further deplete our natural resources, increase the amount of toxic wastes, greenhouse gases, and ultimately, many of these people will suffer.  Of course, as Charlie and I (and many others) have written, a person isn't a person isn't a person.  It's their ecological footprint that matters.  A single person in a developed country has a much greater ecological and carbon footprint than someone living in a very poor country.  Thus, the intention (dare I say 'right') to develop is a double-edged sword; particularly when you have 7 billion people whose lives you're hoping to improve.

And, while in many places energy is much more efficiently created and used, and while there is a bright future for those who can figure out how to develop more sustainable sources of energy, 7 billion creates a huge barrier to equitable sharing of those energy resources and 7 billion creates a lot of waste and stresses on natural ecosystems.

A few years ago the UN predicted that the population would level off in the next few decades.  But now, some current predictions toy with the idea that the world will soon have 10 billion people.  Pause and imagine this for a moment.  10 billion mouths to feed.  10 billion people to warm and cool and clothe and support.  That's even more pollution, greenhouse gas production, and, ultimately, suffering.

So, this weekend over dinner, talk about a world with 7 billion.  And then think about what a world with 10 billion would look like.  Is it a world that you would want to live in?  Is that amount of global suffering acceptable to you?  What can you do to help prevent that?  What can we all do to better help share the resources with others?  Should we really skip a meal on Monday?

Creating competition to stimulate environmental legislation

Here’s a really interesting claim by E. Donald Elliot (www.eli.org).  Writing in the September/October 2011 issue of “The Environmental Forum” he claims that

“Environmentalists have made three tactical mistakes of historic proportions since 1990.  First, they have consistently supported Democrats, thereby undermining the competition between the two parties on environmental issues that characterized the more productive 1970 to 1992 period.  Second, they have focused almost exclusively on climate change, thereby sucking the oxygen out of other issues (such as updating our chemical management system) on which bipartisan progress would have been possible.  And third, they made a tactical blunder of historic proportions by taking the position that climate science was beyond debate, thereby abandoning public discourse in the United States on climate science to the antis.”

Discussion topics:

How can we nudge our politicians to focus on issues common to both ‘sides of the aisle’ and important to all of us?  Elliot suggests that we repeal the 17^th Amendment (direct election of Senators) to break the cycle of electioneering.

Power Outage: Using less electricity...

If you've been following my Belize saga, let me report that the train stopped, this time, and fortunately.  The wind came up and blew in colder water which drove down the water temperature to the high 80°'s.  Then it started raining (we're in the middle of a large low pressure system that is leading to periodic downpours and squalls).  This has further cooled the water and the coral bleaching has stopped--for now.

But then again, so has the electricity made by our solar panels!  This morning the power went out.  

The marine lab has both a wind turbine and a number of large solar panels to generate electricity.  As we were introduced to the place by the station manager he told us about their conservation ethic.  There are few lights (all compact florescent or florescent) and no hot water (it's not needed).  Fans are used sparingly.  

We did however bring a lot of iPods, speakers, and computers (all required for research--several of my student groups are doing playback experiments to lizards and birds to study communication and predation risk assessment) and some more fans (to keep us cool) and somehow, for the first time in recent history, used up all the power!

Ironically, we're really doing a good job conserving power (using fans sparingly--OK not that sparingly when it felt like 100°F, but generally sparingly, using few lights) so this is a real wake-up to me and is a wake-up call to the power that computers and fans can use!

Discussion Topic

What, if anything, are you doing to conserve power?  What can you easily do to use even less?  Have you thought about solar panels?  How would they work to help you generate power?  How would you use power if you were generating it all yourself.

Coral bleaching: living through a train wreck and being unable to stop it

Have you ever seen a train wreck happen? I’m seeing one right now and it’s terribly sad and a preview of the future. I’m currently teaching my field biology course on a remote marine lab on a Caye off Belize and we’re literally watching the coral bleach. 

Coral, as you might know, has a symbiotic relationship with algae. The colors that coral have result from their algae (called zoozanthellae in the jargon of coral folks). These zoozanthellae are very sensitive to temperature and coral ‘bleaching’ events occur when the zoozanthellae jettison their coral head; something they should not do (imagine the parachute scene from the Woody Allen film “Everything you wanted to know about sex but were too afraid to ask”; Google it if you have to!).

Bleaching is bad: the reef dies if it bleaches and can’t be recolonized by new zoozanthellae. There have been Caribbean-wide bleaching events in the past few decades and some of these have led to widespread destruction of coral reefs. I wonder if we’re about to experience a new one.

I’ve been in the water the past four days. It’s HOT here and the water is warming up. We’ve not had rain in three days and yesterday the water temperature (not just in shallow areas) was over 90°F. This is a magic temperature range because many of these zoozanthellae jettison their coral around this temperature. 

My colleague, a coral reef biologist, pointed out last night that if we didn’t get rain or a wind that would mix in the cold water, we should expect to see a lot of bleaching today. And, while we had a nice sea breeze last night, and the water temperature went down a bit (the air temperature feels like it’s over 100°F), this morning I was shocked to see bleaching coral. Coral heads that were a brilliant yellow yesterday morning are now white. A fan coral, that should be a brilliant purple, is now beached skeletal white.

It’s a compelling sight; made worse because we know what’s going to kill the reef (hot temperatures). We also know what’s going to cause widespread destruction of oceans (acidification). We know that these are a direct result of anthropogenic atmospheric carbon. We know that over-fishing (this will be the subject of another post) eliminates fish populations. We know, yet we continue along our path to a train wreck. Would be fascinating to watch if the consequences were not so profound.

Reefs protect land from storms. Reefs are where fish larvae grow up and thus are important to maintain fisheries. Reefs are going to be the source of new antibiotics that are needed since our current crop of antibiotics is becoming ineffective because of overuse and evolution. Reefs harbor incredible biodiversity; a reason alone for their protection.

Train wreck. Happening. Not very nice to see.

You ever seen a train wreck? Talk about it over dinner. Better yet, discuss ways that we can work together to stop it.