The U.S. Political System is BROKEN
Worried about climate change? Don’t be! The US Senate voted 50-49 to reject “the scientific consensus that humans are causing climate change. So. Problem solved!
The Senate rejected the scientific consensus that humans are causing climate change, days after NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared 2014 the hottest year ever recorded on Earth.
Fools. No. Criminals.
Copenhagen Aftermath
I’d planned on writing about the recent climate change talks but Asymptotic Life has a great post on the Copenhagen Aftermath to get it started. I may add more later.
The leader of the G-77 group of developing nations said, “It is asking Africa to sign a suicide pact, an incineration pact in order to maintain the economic dependence of a few countries."
…
A Greenpeace press release warned that President Obama “now risks being branded as the man who killed Copenhagen."
…
Yet Amanda Little, in an unexpected post at Treehugger, excuses Obama by noting that “Fully 55 percent of Americans surveyed in a recent Washington Post-ABC poll disagree with the way Obama is handling the climate issue, concerned that he is moving too far too fast."
Personally, I believe that’s because corporate intervention has prevented appropriate education– and the realization that if we burn less energy, we’ll spend less money! But the powers that be don’t want us to burn less energy: the more we waste, the more money they make.
And again here, rightfully suggesting that since the government can’t be counted on it is up to people to do it themselves:
The Copenhagen climate summit has ended. The result: a non-binding agreement that we ought to do something about CO2 emissions, but with no commitments as to who will do what. There’s also a generalized statement– again, nonbinding– that there will be a fund to provide up to $100 billion per year to developing nations that must cope with climate change, with no indication of who’s going to ante up.
In short, the summit was a failure. Some argue that getting nations to agree on anything is itself a success. But the fact is, two nations blocked this process: the United States and China. These just happen to be the world’s biggest carbon polluters– and two of the nations least likely to be affected by early climate changes. Coincidence? I think not.
In essence, my country and its new ally China have thumbed their noses at the world. We Americans have said that we don’t care what the cost is to others, we insist on maintaining our current levels of decadence and waste. And no one can stop us: we are the most powerful nation in the world (and China is probably second).
I am yet hopeful that the other industrialized nations will reduce their emissions, despite our refusal to do so. They will be at a significant economic disadvantage, since the U.S. will continue to plunge ahead without the added expense of paying for the cost of its carbon. We may regain hegemony as a result.
I am yet hopeful that the citizens of the United States will defy their leaders and demand change– the change that then-candidate Barack Obama promised, but has yet to materialize. I am yet hopeful that each of us will cut our own emissions to the extent we can, and elect legislators and executives who will give us the resources to cut further.
It’s too late to eliminate all effects of climate change. People will die because of our inaction. The best we can do is to act now to stop climate change from becoming worse than the present and future effects we’ve already caused.
The Bible (it’s Sunday– you knew I’d bring it back to the Bible) teaches us that we are responsible for the failures of our government. We will pay the price for the inaction of President Obama, and President Bush before him.
Will we stand by as our leaders heap guilt on us? Or will we stand up and demand what should have been done already? Sadly, I think we’ll probably let Obama lead us down the road to Hell.
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Wood Stove Thermal Mass Update
First, a bit of background for those not familiar with the construction details of my cabin. It is standard 2x4 walls with R-13 insulation, R-19 in the ceiling and inside walls finished with plywood beadboard. While the floor is not properly insulated I did very carefully stuff MANY layers of bubble wrap in this fall with rolled wrap tightly stuffed into each end to block the wind. It’s not real insulation but I’m certain that there is FAR less wind and air movement under the space that had previously been open. The bubble wrap was not purchased but re-used from Greg’s shutter business. I’ve also got stacked rock along the base of the cabin from ground up a couple inches past the outer 2x8 rafter.
For this winter I stacked concrete blocks around my wood stove with excellent results thus far. I’ve got a total of 24 solid blocks (3.5" x 7.5" x 15.5"). They’re stacked on the the two long sides and behind the stove and up about 2.5 feet on the back side of the stove pipe. On the sides I’ve got them stacked two thick (about 7"). On top I’ve got a big enamel canning pot full of water which leaves just enough room on the stove top to put my coffee pot. I also reinforced the floor deck under this corner of the cabin using a couple concrete blocks placed snuggly under the floor rafters.
I’m finding that I can do two very distinct fires, morning and late evening. Thus far each fire is 3-5 logs for a fairly hot burn of 1.5 to 2.5 hours. The result is that the concrete blocks moderate the hottest peak of the burn because they are of course absorbing lots of heat. About an hour after the fire has burned out the heat finally really makes it’s way to the outer edges of the concrete. They are hot to the touch but by no means hot enough to burn anything. I type this at 3:15pm and the blocks and pot of water are still noticeably warm. My morning fire was over at 8:15am -that’s seven hours of steady, slow warmth. I expect that they’ll radiate heat for another hour, maybe two before diminishing. A huge improvement. Rather than peaking at 85 (or higher!) and fairly quickly dropping to 60 I’m peaking at about 80 and VERY slowly dropping. In fact, there is a moderation of temps even past the time that the blocks feel warm. I’m going out this evening and won’t be back till 9pm to rekindle the fire but if the past week is any indication the cabin will still be at 60 or above at that time… 12 hours past the morning fire. Outside temps today: 30 at sunrise, 40 at 3:30pm. Inside temps today: 60 at sunrise, 68 at 3:30pm. I’ve just started keeping track 9 days ago and in that time I’m seeing an average difference of about 22 degrees at sunrise and sunset before the morning or evening fire is built.
My guess is that in the colder part of winter when nights regularly dip to 20 or less and highs only in the lower 30s that I’ll be burning my morning and evening fires longer with more logs but I’m hoping that each fire will still be fewer than 10 logs. Based on what I’ve seen thus far I don’t think it is unrealistic to estimate that I’ll burn about 40-50% less wood than last year. I wish I’d thought to keep track last year with no blocks so that I could compare by numbers rather than memory of numbers. I routinely heated myself out of the cabin. It would warm very quickly but also cool fairly quickly, especially at night. Each day I’d try to get the fire up then let it go to very low coals and re-ignite. At night I’d try to keep the fire going till bed at midnight when I’d stock it up as much as I could without getting it too hot to sleep. If I failed to wake up at 2 or 3 am to get it going again I regularly woke to 40 degrees, sometimes less on really cold nights. Constantly up and down.
Regardless of how much wood I save I know for certain that the less extreme temperatures and warmer mornings will greatly increase my comfort level as well as the time I spend tending the fire. Well worth the $52 spent on concrete blocks! This is not even close to an original idea. There are many variations on the concept. Masonry stoves, cob…. the important thing is to have as much thermal mass around your stove as you can afford and safely place on the floor. If I had planned better I would have built this section of floor much stronger and would have 40 or 50 blocks rather than 24. In that case I’d often be able to get by with just one fire a day, burning it a bit hotter and longer and coasting for longer. The more mass the better the moderating of temps. The greenest choice would be a cob covered rocket stove. If I’d known of those when we started I probably would have gone that route.
Update: Last night got cold! Outside temp at 7am was 18 which I consider the first real test. Inside the bricks and water were still quite warm and it was 62 in the cabin. The fire did go late though as I got in late. Fire from 10pm with a big bed of coals at 1am, 7 logs burned. I’m VERY happy with this. I know from last year that a fire ending at 1am, with 18 degrees outside would have meant a morning just above 40 with NO residual heat from the stove. On a typical night though I’ll probably start my evening fire 2-3 hours earlier which will likely mean that the fire dies down at 11pm and the morning temp will be closer to 58ish. Still, a fantastic improvement!
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Antarctic ice shelf set to collapse
Ugh. Antarctic ice shelf set to collapse due to warming:
A huge Antarctic ice shelf is on the brink of collapse with just a sliver of ice holding it in place, the latest victim of global warming that is altering maps of the frozen continent.
‘We’ve come to the Wilkins Ice Shelf to see its final death throes,’ David Vaughan, a glaciologist at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), told Reuters after the first – and probably last – plane landed near the narrowest part of the ice.
The flat-topped shelf has an area of thousands of square kilometers, jutting 20 meters (65 ft) out of the sea off the Antarctic Peninsula.
But it is held together only by an ever-thinning 40-km (25-mile) strip of ice that has eroded to an hour-glass shape just 500 meters wide at its narrowest.
In 1950, the strip was almost 100 km wide.
‘It really could go at any minute,’ Vaughan said on slushy snow in bright sunshine beside a red Twin Otter plane that landed on skis. He added that the ice bridge could linger weeks or months.
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An animal walking in the woods
Me.
Ha! I wrote that line and almost stopped because I liked the title and the simplicity of that one word in answer. But really, this post is prompted by something Greenpa over at Little Blog in the Big Woods wrote. It is something I have meant to write about for a long, long time but never did: that we have let the conveniences of modern day life come between us and the direct experience of nature. It has softened us and dulled us. I suppose I have written about it in a round about way when I’ve discussed living without an air conditioner, fridge, or running water but I’ve not written about it in quite the same way that Greenpa
puts it here:
‘You set up your house so you HAVE to walk at least 100 yards to get to your car?! On PURPOSE??! And the worse the weather, the farther you have to walk??!!!?'
Yes I did.
Why?
Because I’m lazy.
Seriously. I’d rather not walk that far, particularly in lousy weather. If I could avoid it, I wouldn’t do it.
That, however, is something I see as an increasing problem in our world; our ever growing insulation from nature. In my lifetime, we’ve seen air-conditioning invented; then become an absolute necessity. There are loads of kids out there who cannot conceive of summer in the city without full air-conditioning.
Besides all the energy load of the machines, and the ozone destroying refrigerants; all the heat pumped out into the city so that meteorologists now see them as ‘heat islands’ on their maps; these kids do not know what it is to be HOT. And to have to deal with it.
Or cold. In winter, we go from our heated houses into our attached garages, get into our pre-warmed cars; drive to the underground parking ramps, scurry to the elevators (heated) and shiver into the offices, complaining about how miserably cold it is, without actually having been outside more than 30 seconds at a time.
As a biologist, I can assure you, we can tolerate a lot of heat; and adapt to a lot of cold, and human skin does not melt in the rain. But more and more, kids are genuinely unaware of that.
I don’t think that’s a good idea. And I doubt it’s good to be so comfortable, all the time, even for folks who DO know it. I really think humans are a part of nature. And I really think we need to stay in touch with the rest of it.
Anyone that knows me or who has read this blog knows what I think about climate change and peak oil. Not only are they very real but they have come to our front door and stepped into our homes. They are here right now.
I’ve chosen do what I think must be done on a mass scale right now (though I’m certain it won’t be) and that is DRASTIC change in how we live our lives. I have chosen to live directly and deliberately with nature as a part of nature. Ultimately I think more and more of us will be forced into this but I’d much rather make the changes by choice. In fact, I relish the intensity and beauty of it. The other night is was sitting in our unheated outhouse at 8 degrees F. Not only did I survive but as I did my business I enjoyed looking out the window at the star filled sky and it was perhaps the most fantastic shit I’ve ever taken. The very next morning I was out there doing the very same thing only this time I was watching and listening as a variety of birds went about their morning business in the branches just a few feet away. Yes my ass was frozen but thanks to the beauty surrounding me this too was a great start to another day.
The fact is that these are the conditions that many all over this planet still live in every day. As Greenpa says above, humans are much, much more durable than we in the “civilized” world realize. Not only can we survive the greater intensity of a life lived more directly, but the experiences deepen our appreciation of the simple comforts that we do have. In truth, if we truly value the ideas of justice and fairness it seems to me that we really should live in such a way that limits our resource use to a level that will allow our fellow humans to live better. Our very survival depends on it.
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Climate change and the need for drastic action
Rob Hopkins of the Transition Town movement has an excellent post: about the need for fairly drastic 9% cuts in carbon emissions that we need to avert climate change. His post reminds me of something I wrote nearly a year ago, namely that we need a global recession. Humans have thus far proven incapable of dealing with this issue in any meaningful way. A recession or depression, though very difficult, will force the solution.
From Hopkins' post:
Last week a friend sent me a stunning, thinking-shifting powerpoint by Kevin Anderson of the Tyndall Centre’s Energy Programme entitled Reframing Climate Change: from long-term targets to emission pathways. If you want a sobering and, frankly, deeply depressing, update on the implications of the latest climate science, this is as good a place to start as any. It looks at the scale of the year-on-year emissions that we need to make, and it is quite something. Given that we need to aim to stay below 450ppm in order to have any chance of avoiding runaway climate change (and even that, as the Climate Safety report, issued last week, and the recent testimony from Tim Helwig-Larsen and James Hansen at the House of Commons set out, is almost certainly not enough), what does that actually mean in terms of emissions cuts?
If , Anderson argues, we were to aim for 650ppm with global emissions peaking in 2020, we would need 3% annual cuts starting today. A huge task in itself. If we want to aim for 550ppm with emissions peaking in 2020, we would need 6% annual reductions (which means 9% reductions in emissions from energy generation). If we go for the 450ppm target, which is, realistically, the one that has any chance of preserving a stable climate, we need 9% reductions, every year, for the foreseeable future, starting now. 9%.
9% is just a number though, and as one wades through the climate change literature one is bombared with numbers… but having studied this presentation, 9% is clearly an important one, perhaps as important as Bill McKibben’s 350. What might it actually mean in practice? Anderson goes on to look at the rare occasions in the past when reductions have actually been achieved by ‘developed’ nations. Annual reductions of greater than 1% p.a. have, he argues, quoting the Stern Report, only ‘been associated with economic recession or upheaval’. Interesting.
I have little doubt that we have entered a greater depression or what James Kunstler calls the Long Emergency. The landscape of the United States is changing by the day and by the end of 2009 it will be very different place. We can waste resources fighting this inevitability or we can embrace it. I have chosen to embrace it by shifting to a greatly simplified life based on permaculture. I’ll do my best to become self sufficient and to share my surpluses.
What does a simple life like this look like? In the first 8 months of living at my homestead I’ve happily lived on 2-3 kWh a day (the U.S. average is around 31 a day) with no refrigerator, microwave, or other major appliances. I use a couple of compact fluorescent lights, a laptop, and, on occasion, a television. I haul water from a well and use 3-5 gallons a day. I cook with propane or wood stove which is also my heat in the winter. All humanure is composted for use on fruit trees after 2 years. I drive to town once a week. Next years expanded garden should produce much of my year’s food. If I can preserve it properly maybe most of my food. When the food forest has matured I’m hoping to be able to produce all my food for the year except for the rice and wheat.
Having lived a similar life at the deCleyre co-op in Memphis, TN I have little doubt that a great deal can be done on any suburban or city lot. Striving for a smaller carbon footprint and greater self reliance can happen anywhere though certainly those with more land can grow more. Washing clothes by hand and hanging to dry can happen practically anywhere as can food preparation from scratch.
The key is to take a hard look at what we use and assume as the normal, needed appliances. We often don’t need them, but have gotten used to them. The 9% reduction discussed in the article above is a very large cut from what we currently use. It will require that we all garden, reduce driving to only essential or emergency trips, and drastically reduce our consumption. In other word,s 9% is not accomplished by the easy stuff like changing light bulbs. It means little or no air conditioning, heating in the winter to 55 or 60 rather than 72. Imagine cutting your electrical use by half and then cut that in half again. Now cut it in half one more time. Anyone can do these things but it will not be easy and it will require commitment to drastic change. It really is that simple.
One last thought. For those that want to believe that we can solve this problem with technology. It is NOT going to happen that way. Sure, we can build out solar and wind power capacity and we should. But that is only part of the answer, probably the smallest part. The largest part will be the drastic conservation that we can all do RIGHT NOW without any government legislation or infrastructure change.
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Climate change, global depression and consumption
Apparently there is talk that Al Gore might be head of the EPA in the Obama administration and just over a week ago Gore wrote up a dream list which was published in the New York Times.
One of my current favorite authors, Sharon Astyk, in her post A New Deal or a War Footing? Thinking Through Our Response to Climate Change wonders why there is no mention of lowering consumption. This is something I’ve written about before. Earlier this year I wrote that, in fact, a global economic recession was exactly what was needed as a way of forcing the lowering of consumption and thus a lowering of climate impact. From Sharon’s blog:
Quick - what’s not on this list? I bet you noticed, too - there’s no mention of consumption, either as an economic issue or at the personal level. Rather like coming out of ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ we’re left with the message that there’s nothing for us to do other than lobby our fearless leaders.
What’s wrong with that? Addressing climate change manifestly requires policy solutions - but again we see ourselves trapped in the false dichotomy I discuss in Depletion and Abundance between public and private. There is no question in the world that consumption is a policy issue - 70% of our economy depends on consumer spending and personal consumption. Yet again we are being told that ‘personal action’ is something you do in the dark that makes no difference, while the really important stuff happens at the government tables.
In fact, in reality, we know differently. At US government tables we’ve seen exactly 0 major policy shifts so far - yes, we had the worst president imaginable, but that doesn’t change the fact that under Clinton, when Gore was vice-president, we saw the same zippo. At the same time, as consumers have slowed their spending, we’ve seen projections of world oil use fall dramatically - for the first time in decades, we are expecting an actual contraction in the use of oil. Earlier this year, actual driving miles fell dramatically - as much as 6% year over year. Now these things were in reaction to high prices - but they were consumption decisions made by private households that in the aggregate made more real difference in the impact of our emissions than all the treaties we’ve violated or refused to sign.
The assumption, of course, is that we make changes for economic reasons, but that we’d never make them for ecological reasons. My answer to that is simply this - no one has tried asking Americans to make major shifts in their lifestyle for the good of their country and their ecology in 30 years. We assume we know that this would never succeed - in practice, we don’t have the slightest idea what would happen.
Consumption is not simply accidentally left off the table by people who underestimate its power or prefer only to focus on legislation, it is left off because thinking about consumption undermines some of the presumptions of wholly technical and policy solutions. In fact, if we addressed consumption, we might have to change our basic assumptions about what we can accomplish.
Think about Gore’s list above in relation to consumption. The first thing, of course, that jumps out at you is the claim we have to bail out the car companies, even though, as Deutsche Bank announced, GM is worth nothing - its stock is worth absolutely nothing. Think about that one for a second, and consider what has to underly our presumptions that we should bail out a car company - underlying it is the assumption that we will all be buying cars again fairly soon - shiny new electric ones.
That is, underlying the assumptions of a Gore-style New Deal is the idea that we can do temporary bail outs because our consumption is going to go back up - only this time we’ll be consuming green products, including our electric cars. There are several problems with this - the obvious one being that it isn’t clear what will fund our ability to buy these new cars in the coming years. The assumption is that the new green jobs will do so - and perhaps that’s true, but there’s a ‘turtles all the way down’ quality to this analysis - the new deal will give us the ability to make these shifts, and the money will then only be spent for good (despite the fact that historically, the more we spend, the more we consume)….I’m not convinced anyone knows how that might happen.
Sharon offers many details in her thought provoking analysis of the energy input vs return in the massive renewable energy program that the Gore approach entails. I encourage you toread her post in it’s entirety.
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Improvised shade for energy conservation
I had another one of those aha!! moments that is almost embarrasing because it was so long coming. As I’ve written recently I’m not using air conditioning as a part of my effort to reduce my personal impact on the climate. I’m also living in a cabin which is not completely finished on the inside. The ceiling is finished and well insulated with a ceiling fan installed. I’ve still got two walls that need the electrical wiring finished, insulation on two walls still to be installed and then pine bead board for all of the inside walls.
Much of my cabin is shaded at various times of day but it does get hit with a good bit of direct sun. About half of the east facing side gets full sun from about 9am to noon. I made it a point to insulate about half of this wall a few weeks back but a good bit of heat still makes it through. I would have done the whole wall but I have a good bit of temporary shelving nailed up to the other half and it is fully stocked with food so I stopped at the half way point.
Three weeks ago Greg brought down a truck load of used 2x4, 2x6, and 2x8 wood to be re-used for a variety of future projects. We stacked it into a neat pile where it has been sitting ever since. Meanwhile I’ve been working, observing and thinking about the design elements of the site and future projects. I decided very early on that I’d be putting a series of eight or so raised rain collection barrels along the back/east side of the cabin and that I’d put a lattice or similar structure on it for some sort of perennial fruit vine or an annual bean/squash vine to provide food and shade. I may also plant a couple fruit trees back there. But those projects won’t be completed until early spring of next year.
Now, for that aha! moment. It’s hot and humid outside. I’m hot. My dog is hot. My unfinished walls are getting direct sunlight and heating up outside and inside. Why not lean all those neatly stacked boards up against the east side of my cabin? So simple and obvious!! In ten minutes I’ve provided a solid wall of deep shade that should easily give me another hour or two of inside coolness. I’ll be doing the same thing along the south side of the cabin which gets direct sun from about 3pm to 5pm.
Greg will be back down around the third weekend of August and we’ll get the inside walls finished off but I’ll be leaving those boards up until they no longer get the direct sun or until outside temperatures cool down, probably the middle of September.
It always amazes me how many people do not shade their houses with trees, bushes or vines. I suppose that the combination of cheap energy, air conditioning and fairly well insulated homes combined make it easy for folks to ignore or not realize just how much direct sunlight on exterior walls can heat a home. As energy becomes increasingly expensive and eventually as shortages occur I expect these details will become more important to more people.
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Living without an air conditioner and the end of the world
I wrote the other day about not using a refrigerator as a part of my efforts to reduce my carbon footprint. I’d mentioned that if we in the U.S. are going to lower our our carbon footprint to a level which is equitable and closer to sustainable that we would need to lower our emissions by about 90%. Ninety. Percent. That is a drastic reduction. Ponder it for a moment. Hell, ponder it for the rest of the day if you’d like.
I came across that particular percentage will reading through this post by DJ at the excellent blog, Asymptotic Life:
Listening to Radio West yesterday, I heard a guest make an interesting point: if we tell poor people around the globe that they can’t live the way we do, we’re trying to prevent global warming by forcing people to continue to live in poverty. That is, for most of us, morally unacceptable.
Our current attitude seems to be that we can afford to buy all that energy and emit that CO2, and “they” can’t. Too bad, but bully for us…
—
What would it look like to create an equitable and sustainable per-capita CO2 emissions policy? Assuming everyone emitted the same amount of CO2, how much could we all emit without frying the planet (and all of us with it)?
Let’s assume that, to keep CO2 concentrations low enough to avoid catastrophe, we limit CO2 concentration to 350 ppm— down from today’s 385 ppm. That means cutting CO2 emissions by 50% of their current levels. At 2004 levels, the world generated 27 billion metric tons of CO2— more than 20% of that by the U.S. alone. That means we’d need to reduce to about 13.5 million metric tons worldwide.
The world population is currently 6.8 billion people. That means each person would be allowed to emit 2 tons of CO2 per year. For 88 countries in the world, that’s a step up— more than they currently produce per capita. But for we priviledged few in the U.S., that means cutting our per capita emissions (currently over 20 tons per person per year) by 90%.
One of the largest energy hogs in any household is the air conditioner. Others at the top of the list are whole house forced air heating systems, hot water heaters, refrigerators, freezers, and plasma tvs. In addition to not having a refrigerator I’ve decided I will not use an A/C. I do have a small window A/C but only run it at the request of visiting guests. When it is just me and Talula we get hot, damn hot. We cool off with lots of water, we slow down and sit in the shade. We’ll survive just like many of other billions of humans who survive everyday in hot climates with no A/C. It’s not easy, not fun (well, actually swimming is fun), not comfortable but it is possible.
Before I move on let me quote another of DJ’s excellent posts, What Two Tons Means to Me:
Last week, I calculated that a sustainable and equitable rate of CO2 emissions would be about 2 tons per person per year. Currently, the U.S. emits just over 20 tons of CO2 per person annually. Of this, according to EPA, 20% (4 tons) is caused by household energy use and about 27% (5.5 tons) is caused by four-wheeled passenger vehicles. The remainder, about 11 tons, is generated by the economy on our behalf, including manufacturing, agriculture, cement and steel production, and transportation of goods both for us and for export.
Let’s assume that DJ’s figures are correct. Even with my limited use of electricity I am averaging 25 Kwh a week, about 100 a month. That’s for one person in a small cabin of 192 square feet. On a typical day I use: 1 compact fluorescent light, a ceiling fan, a window fan, and a laptop computer. Other appliances that draw power on occasion: water well pump, battery charger, external hard drive, computer speakers, and phone charger. That’s it and it still adds up to 100 Kwh a month. The average U.S. household uses just under 900 Kwh a month, just in electricity. Imagine the difficulty of cutting that by 60-80%!
Want to try something interesting? Take a weekend and power down everything in your house. Go through room by room and unplug everything on Friday evening. Over dinner discuss the adventure and what it means. Experience Friday night and Saturday without power. Use the time to discuss and evaluate your needs. Define the difference between needs and wants, needs and comforts. Make an effort to understand your needs and usage as they relate to the needs and usage of the vast majority of families around the planet that use far less. Sunday morning or afternoon begin the process of slowly and thoughtfully plugging things back in based Saturday’s discussion.
Remember, we’re not even considering the carbon that is emitted by personal transportation, emissions that would need to be cut by 80% or more. Then there are carbon emissions related to consumption of food and consumer goods.
This is why the governmental “solutions” put forth by congress and presidents (or the current crop of presidential candidates) are a sad joke. These folks are not even CLOSE to realistic. The same goes for the myriad “100 things you can do to save the planet lists” that we see put forth by media and mainstream environmental groups. Sure, we should all do the easy things that are on those lists but the reality is that if we are serious about slowing climate change we are going to have to make drastic changes to the way we live. I’m all for it, I think we absolutely should go all out. I think we should sacrifice, should do whatever it takes. But my guess is that most folks would laugh at the idea. Frankly, I don’t think that today’s Americans have the strength of character the task requires. We’ve been far too spoiled for far too long.
When it comes down to it most folks in western “civilized” nations will only change when it is forced on them when resources are no longer available at prices they can afford. We’re already seeing that people are driving less in the U.S. now that gas is averaging $4/gallon, imagine gas at $6, $7, or $8 a gallon. Imagine utility rates doubling or tripling. Those things are coming sooner than later and I for one welcome them. Yes, they will bring hardship and suffering and around the world billions are already suffering as they are already effected by price increases. Regardless of what reality is about to force upon us, it is probably too late in terms of the climate. What we have set in motion will not be easily undone, most likely we will hardly slow the process at all.
Michael Stipe said it best: It’s the end of the world as we know it.
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The great eggsperiment
I’ve mentioned before that a part of our plan here is to have chickens which are, of course, an essential ingredient in almost any permaculture design. Not only do they provide eggs and meat (not for me!), but also manure, warmth for plants in an attached greenhouse, feathers, and they help weed/till the garden as they eat insects and food wastes. In short, chickens rock. I cannot wait to get our coop built and the chickens moved in. For now I’ll content myself with eggs which are raised by someone else in their backyard. What’s great about home raised eggs is that I can request that they not be washed. You may not know this but eggs have a protective layer which keeps them perfectly edible for up to three weeks without being refrigerated. Neat, eh? This is especially important for me because I do not have, or plan to get, a refrigerator. Let me explain.
One of the primary principles of permaculture is earth care which means, in part, reducing our carbon footprint. For those of us in the U.S. this means a drastic reduction of about 90% (I’ll discuss that figure in another entry to be posted soon) if we are to have an equal share with the rest of our fellow humans. In addition to earth care there is of course the added reality of peak oil/coal/energy (peak everything really but that’s also another post for another day!).
What this means for me in my day-to-day life is that I have made a choice to not have the typical electrical appliances that most people in the U.S. take for granted as necessary for life. This brings me back to the refrigerator. Because I don’t a refrigerator I have to adapt, I have to think differently about how I use and store food. I have to make sure that the eggs I get have not been washed so that I can keep them at everyday temperatures. I no longer drink soy milk which I only really used as a creamer for coffee. Also, no cheese which I don’t miss much since I rarely ate it. It means that I have to be careful when I cook so that I’m not cooking too much. If I do have left overs I can usually keep them in a small cooler with a bit of very cold well water and eat them the next day with no ill effects.
I’ve been living without a refrigerator for nearly two months and I’m still very healthy. It has required a few modifications to my diet but nothing drastic. It’s just one step towards a smaller carbon footprint and a way of life that will likely be a fact for most of us in a future with fewer fossil fuel resources.
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Our planet needs a global recession
Just popping in to offer up a thought about the current thinking regarding climate change and the economy in relation to current political discourse and media. It is generally accepted thinking that economic recession is bad. It is also now generally accepted that climate change is a serious global problem which needs to be addressed in a very serious manner by governments and citizens.
Let me point out the hard truth which will never be uttered by any candidate for U.S. president, not even Barack Obama who seems to have a great deal of support of liberals and progressives in the U.S. No current Democratic or Republican candidate is even close. If we are going to solve the climate crisis we must reduce our carbon emissions immediately and let me be clear by what I mean by reduce and immediately. I mean that we need a reduction of 50% by yesterday and 90% by tomorrow. We need a global economic recession because we need an immediate end to economic growth. We need an end to a global economy that is based on ever increasing consumption and which promotes consumerism as a way of life. It is not what most people want to hear and it is not what a candidate will say if they want to get elected. But it is the truth.
Our level of public and political discussion regarding climate change and natural resources reflects our thinking on the issues and it is purely delusional. The time for making gradual but serious changes to our way of life was 1990. In 2008 we have runaway climate change and a planet of 7 billion people which has reached peak energy production.
Buckle up for a very rough ride.
Enchanted Planet Images
My new site for my growing set of image galleries: Enchanted Planet Images. I think with this new year I’m going to weed through my growing collection of accounts and weed a few out. Given my desire to limit and reduce my carbon footprint, it would seem that I really should eliminate accounts on servers that I do not need, this being one of them. I think I’ve been averaging less than 10 hits a day for this blog for many months. I’ve not been very consistent about posting so I’m not surprised. For the amount that I write the blog I’ve set up at Enchanted Planet Images should probably be adequate. So, if you are one my very few subscribers/readers you may want to change your bookmark.
Happy New Year and let’s all hope for a recession. The planet could sure use one. In fact, economic slowdown should be the prime goal of a society concerned about conserving resource usage and slowing climate change.
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Climate Change, Conservation, Environment, Environmentalism, Photography, Recession
Fall Light
This was taken a few weeks ago. There's no doubt that the fall weather was very late to arrive this year. We had mostly green leaves on trees up to the end of October. I suspect we will see very little snow this winter just as we've seen very little in the past four... far less than in years past. It is way too warm.
Summer Ends
Northern Sea Oats in my garden.
It seems that fall may finally be arriving with a bit of cool weather. As I write this 95% of our trees are still very green. It's October 10th and we're just beginning to see fall color. The past few weeks have seen most days into the low 90s or upper 80s. Scary.
Like much of the midwest and southeast we've had a summer of severe drought so I'm doubtful that we'll have as much color as we've had in other years.
Saddleback Buddies
Saddleback Caterpillars in my garden.
Not sure what I want to say... if I want to say anything at all. I'm sad, derpessed, disgusted and I have a hard time getting the words out... have a hard time believing that the words matter anymore. As I said in my previous post, I feel that I've given up hope.
Rather than throw the blog away altogether, which is still something I'm considering, an alternative might be to turn it into a photo blog of sorts. I continue to post to Flickr so perhaps I'll start posting the best of those photos here once or twice a week. As with everything else these days, I'm not sure.
On giving up
I'm finding that I don't know how to feel. I'm depressed but really that's only part of my reaction. I feel numb. I want to hide. In fact, that is what I'm doing I suppose. I've come to the conclusion that all I can do is minimize my negative impact which means I don't go out much at all. I don't want to interact with people... we humans, at least those I know and have known in my life... we're selfish busy-bodies. MORE, MORE, MORE, MORE. We cannot be satisfied. We refuse to acknowledge the truth of our lives. We lie to ourselves and our children and our grand children. We humans are selfish, greedy liars.
I long ago made the decision not to have children. I cannot imagine bringing one into this world. Not only for the sake of the child, but also in terms of adding to the problem. In terms of ecology and planetary recovery we need about 4 billion fewer humans, not one more. Even better, I'd guess the planet would be best served by our extinction. If I believed in god that's what I'd pray for.
Al Gore's climate change hypocrisy
<img style=“float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;” src=“https://denny.micro.blog/uploads/2022/35b9767fcf.jpg" border=“0” alt=““id=“BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5067040599665951154” />“Al Gore’s American Life” photographed for Time Magazine by Steve Pyke.
You know, he’s got plenty of critics and with pictures like this it is as though he wants to give them more to critique. Damn Al, I mean… Really?? Do you need three 30” lcds? Do you? Three? NEED them? Al, let me keep this simple: you’re being a dick and you’re certainly not helping the cause. The problem of climate change requires that we humans change the way we live, particularly the way we use resources. I look at this picture, just one little part of Al’s life, and I see someone using more than his share. Period.
Technorati Tags: Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth, Climate Change, Energy, Energy Conservation, Energy Crisis, Fossil Fuels, Global Warming, Natural Resources, Sea level rise
Cutting grass without gas
<img style=“border: solid 1px gray; float:right; margin-left: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;” src=“https://denny.micro.blog/uploads/2022/25cf0ab4b9.jpg" border=“0” alt=““id=“BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5058480232153970450” />
I mentioned in my last post that I had ordered a new gas-less reel mower and now that I’ve used it twice I’m happy to report that it works much better than I expected. We live out in the woods with 5 acres of mostly woodland and about 1/2 acre of grass. Of that 1/2 acre half is heavily shaded and the grass is very thin and is as much moss and wild flowers as grass. The other part of the lawn, is regular grass that gets plenty of sun. The reel mower handled it with ease and in about the same time it takes with a gas mower. It will tend to miss grass or weeds such as dandelions that have gotten too tall but if I cut every 5-6 days it won’t be a problem. Aside from the fact that it does not use gas the other two things I really like about it is its light weight and very quiet operation. I detest the sound of gas mowers almost as much as the carbon they spew into the atmosphere, this reel mower makes grass cutting an almost pleasant experience.
This was $120 very well spent.
Birds, Bears, and Climate Change
Some European birds delay migration due to warmth:
OSLO (Reuters) - Some European birds have failed to fly south for the winter, apparently lured to stay by weeks of mild weather that experts widely link to global warming.
Birds including robins, thrushes and ducks that would normally fly south from Scandinavia, for instance, have been seen in December – long after snow usually drives them south. And Siberian swans have been late reaching western Europe.
“With increasing warmth in winter we suspect that some types of birds won’t bother to migrate at all,” said Grahame Madge, spokesman of the British Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).
Many individual birds were leaving later, and flying less far.
One Swiss study this month suggested that Europe has just had the warmest autumn in 500 years. Frosts have crept south in the past week – chilling any birds gambling that the entire winter will be balmy.
Climate Change vs Mother Nature: Scientists Reveal That Bears Have Stopped Hibernating:
Bears have stopped hibernating in the mountains of northern Spain, scientists revealed yesterday, in what may be one of the strongest signals yet of how much climate change is affecting the natural world.
In a December in which bumblebees, butterflies and even swallows have been on the wing in Britain, European brown bears have been lumbering through the forests of Spain’s Cantabrian mountains, when normally they would already be in their long, annual sleep.
Bears are supposed to slumber throughout the winter, slowing their body rhythms to a minimum and drawing on stored resources, because frozen weather makes food too scarce to find. The barely breathing creatures can lose up to 40 per cent of their body weight before warmer springtime weather rouses them back to life.
But many of the 130 bears in Spain’s northern cordillera - which have a slightly different genetic identity from bear populations elsewhere in the world - have remained active throughout recent winters, naturalists from Spain’s Brown Bear Foundation (La Fundación Oso Pardo - FOP) said yesterday.
The change is affecting female bears with young cubs, which now find there are enough nuts, acorns, chestnuts and berries on thebleak mountainsides to make winter food-gathering sorties “energetically worthwhile”, scientists at the foundation, based in Santander, the Cantabrian capital, told El Pais newspaper.
Technorati Tags: Bears, Birds, Climate Change, Global Warming, Migration
Europe wonders where the snow is
Well in Missouri we’re having our 4th straight year of no winter. Instead we’re having an extended fall that turns into spring. Snow has become a rare event and has been replaced by winter rain and flower blossoms. According to Peter Finn of the Washington Post Europe is also looking for snow:
Scattered flurries teased Moscow on Tuesday afternoon with the promise of a real winter, the birthright of a city whose people take pride in trudging through snow and in ice fishing and cross-country skiing in white countryside beyond the outer beltway.
The winter of 2006 has yet to arrive, however, and Muscovites are deeply discombobulated. “I want snow. I want the New Year’s feeling,” said Viktoria Makhovskaya, a street vendor who sells gloves and mittens. “This is a disgusting winter. I don’t like it at all."
Moscow is not alone in the unexpected warmth – it stretches across the continent.
Preliminary data from the Met Office, Britain’s national weather service, and the University of East Anglia indicate that 2006 has been the warmest year in Britain since record-keeping concerning weather conditions began in central England in 1659.
Trees are sprouting leaves in Switzerland. And low-altitude ski resorts across the Alps look more like springtime meadows. “We are currently experiencing the warmest period in the Alpine region in 1,300 years,” Reinhard Boehm, a climatologist at Austria’s Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics, told the Associated Press in Vienna.
Boehm was one of the authors of a European Union-funded climate study that found similar warming periods in the 10th and 12th centuries. But, he said, it’s warmer now, and “it will undoubtedly get warmer in the future."
The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development warns in a report this month “that climate change poses serious risks to the snow reliability of Alpine ski areas, and consequently to the regional economies that depend upon winter tourism."
Up to 80 million people visit Alpine resorts each year, and they are a key contributor to the local economies, the report says.
Technorati Tags: Climate Change, Global Warming, Snow, Europe
Free copies of "An Inconvenient Truth" for educators
A couple weeks back there was news on the internets that 50,000 free copies of the climate change documentary An Inconvenient Truth were rejected by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) after pressure from Exxon and oil industry advocates. Taking a different approach that bypasses the NSTA, those DVDs are now being offered directly to teachers free of charge viaParticipate.net.
The giveaway ends January 18, or when the DVDs run out. Teachers can request a copy at this link.
Via BoingBoing
Technorati Tags: Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth, Climate Change, Global Warming
Greenhouse Gas Is Ramping Up Fast
From Discovery News, Greenhouse Gas Is Ramping Up Fast:
The latest real-world measurements of carbon dioxide levels in Earth’s atmosphere show that it’s increasing at breakneck speed, despite some preliminary efforts in some parts of the world to rein in fossil fuel burning — the main source of the surplus greenhouse gas.
The new data reported in Tasmania last week shows there were 7.9 billion tons of carbon emitted in 2005 and that the 1 percent per year carbon dioxide concentration increase rate of the 1990s has already jumped to 2.5 percent per year. These numbers all point to a worst-case scenario greenhouse effect and global warming.
“There is an agreement between emissions and concentrations,” said atmospheric researcher Mike Raupach of Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO).
The data, as well as other data on rising global temperatures and sea level rise, are reaching the point where they can be used to check the models.
“People are now able to do comparisons between the way aspects of climate change are playing out and how the models predicted,” said Raupach.
The documented rise in carbon levels was revealed as the U.S. Supreme Court considers whether or not the Environmental Protection Agency should regulate carbon dioxide emissions. Currently, carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping pollutants have not been classified as pollutants by the federal agency.
The new data could add some urgency to the Supreme Court’s arguments.
Six climate scenarios were modeled in the late 1990s for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2000 report. The IPCC scenarios range from a world that vigorously curtails its fossil fuel addiction, to one in which greenhouse gas emissions continue to grow unchecked.
“The emissions are tracking the two uppermost of those scenarios,” said Raupach. “That’s not good."
Technorati Tags: Climate Change, Global Warming
The melting of the Equator's glaciers causing significant problems
CNN/AP reporting on the melting of the Equator’s glaciers. It’s estimated that the 3 highest peaks of Africa will loose all of their ice in the next 2 to 5 decades. And it’s not just in Africa or along the Equator of course, almost all of the 300 largest glaciers being monitored are in retreat and I’ll predict that in the next five years the experts will say that the rate of melting is much faster than previously thought.
The effects of climate change on human populations and entire ecosystems is now becoming a very real part of every day life.
NARO MORU, Kenya (AP) – Rivers of ice at the Equator – foretold in the 2nd century, found in the 19th – are now melting away in this new century, returning to the realm of lore and fading photographs.
From mile-high Naro Moru, villagers have watched year by year as the great glaciers of Mount Kenya, glinting in the equatorial sun high above them, have retreated into shrunken white stains on the rocky shoulders of the 16,897-foot peak.
Climbing up, “you can hear the water running down beneath Diamond and Darwin,” mountain guide Paul Nditiru said, speaking of two of 10 surviving glaciers.
Some 200 miles due south, the storied snows of Mount Kilimanjaro, the tropical glaciers first seen by disbelieving Europeans in 1848, are vanishing. And to the west, in the heart of equatorial Africa, the ice caps are shrinking fast atop Uganda’s Rwenzoris – the “Mountains of the Moon” imagined by ancient Greeks as the source of the Nile River.
The total loss of ice masses ringing Africa’s three highest peaks, projected by scientists to happen sometime in the next two to five decades, fits a global pattern playing out in South America’s Andes Mountains, in Europe’s Alps, in the Himalayas and beyond.
Almost every one of more than 300 large glaciers studied worldwide is in retreat, international glaciologists reported in October in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. This is “essentially a response to post-1970 global warming,” they said.
…
Hardships may spread even to Nairobi, Kenya’s metropolis. Most of this country’s shaky electric grid relies on hydropower, and much of that is drawn from waters streaming off Mount Kenya. In a U.N. study issued in early November, scientists predicted that the glacial rivers of Mount Kenya and the rest of east Africa may dry up in 15 years.
“The repercussions on people living down the slopes will be terrible,” said Kenyan environmentalist Grace Akumu.
Scientists say such repercussions would multiply across a world where human settlements have come to depend on steady runoffs from healthy glaciers – in Peru and Bolivia, India and China. And it would extend beyond that, they say, to coastal settlements everywhere, as oceans rise from heat expansion and the melting of land ice.
The October journal report, by European and North American glaciologists, estimates that glacier melt contributed up to one-third of the 1-to-2-inch rise in global sea levels in the past decade. And that contribution is accelerating. Since 2001, they report, dying glaciers apparently have doubled their runoff into the world’s rising seas.
Technorati Tags: Climate Change, Ecology, Glaciers, Global Warming, Africa
Feeding ourselves on a warmer planet
I sometimes wonder if people are really thinking about the effects that global warming will have on their lives. Do folks just think the oceans will rise a little and erode away a few beaches? Maybe a few more intense hurricanes? I have a hunch most have no real clue just how far reaching the effects will be. Personally I’ve come to believe that our very survival is at stake and our ability to feed ourselves is at the top of the list.
The Guardian reports that the Search for crops that can survive global warming has already begun:
An unprecedented effort to protect the world’s food supplies from the ravages of climate change will be launched today by an international consortium of scientists. The move marks a growing recognition that serious changes in weather patterns are inevitable over the coming decades, and that society must begin to adapt.
Some £200m a year will be poured into the research by governments across the world to help agricultural experts develop crops that can withstand heat and drought, find more efficient farming techniques and make better use of increasingly fragile soil and scarce water supplies.
Robert Zeigler, director general of the International Rice Research Institute, said: “The impacts of climate change on agriculture will add significantly to the development challenges of reducing poverty and ensuring sufficient food production for a growing population. The livelihoods of billions of people will be severely challenged as crop yields decline."
The Stern review of the economics of climate change said a 2-3C rise in average global temperatures would put 30-200 million more people at risk of hunger. Once temperatures rise 3C, 250-550 million extra people will be at risk, more than half in Africa and western Asia. At 4C and above, global food production is likely to be hit hard. The British scientist James Lovelock warned last week that such food shortages could trigger a growing number of conflicts this century between nations desperate to find fertile land to feed their people.
Technorati Tags: Agriculture, Climate Change, Ecology, Energy, Global Warming, Natural, Natural Resources, Food, Food Production
2006 Britain's hottest year since records began
In other climate news, The Guardian reports that this year will be Britain’s hottest since records began:
· Surge in temperature astounds weather experts
· Man - not nature - is to blame, researchers say
Britain is on course for the warmest year since records began, according to figures from the Met Office and the University of East Anglia yesterday. Temperatures logged by weather stations across England reveal 2006 to have been unusually mild, with a mean temperature of 10.84C. The record beats the previous two joint hottest years of 1999 and 1990 by 0.21C.
Temperatures in central England have been recorded since 1659, the world’s longest climate record, and they indicate the trend towards warming weather across Britain as a whole.
Why would a surge in temperatures astound weather experts?? It’s to be expected and it will get worse. This is just the beginning.
Technorati Tags: Antarctica, Arctic, Climate Change, Global Warming, England