big footprints
i think one of the reasons that many people – myself included – are skeptical about the idea of a global carbon market – in which companies/organizations/governments buy and sell their carbon emissions – is that the calculation of such a thing is so complex, nearly every eco-economist disagrees with the metrics of the others. in the same vein, for the last few years the idea of individual “carbon footprints” has been around – that each person can easily calculate how much their standard of living costs in carbon each year, or consumers can calculate whether it’s better go paper or plastic or buy a real or a fake christmas tree. websites like carbonfootprint.com make it seem like it’s a straightforward computation that anyone who cares enough should be able to figure out. but is it? for example, which is greener:
1. For a New Yorker to buy a French wine, or a California wine?
2. For a Londoner to buy English lamb, or lamb imported from New Zealand?
Proponents of the local food movement would probably that in both cases, buying the product produced in your own country is always the best choice, using the logic that buying food produced closer to you is greener because it is transported a shorter distance:
It is a logical and widely held assumption that the ecological impacts of transporting food—particularly on airplanes over great distances—are far more significant than if that food were grown locally. There are countless books, articles, Web sites, and organizations that promote the idea. There is even a “100-Mile Diet,” which encourages participants to think about “local eating for global change.” Eating locally produced food has become such a phenomenon, in fact, that the word “locavore” was just named the 2007 word of the year by the New Oxford American Dictionary. — “Big Foot” by Michael Specter
however, as New Yorker Big Foot article discusses, beginning with one British grocery chain’s challenge to put a carbon sticker on every one of its 70,000 products showing how much carbon was used to produce that product, once the math really gets going, the results are often surprising. due to differences in transportation, energy production, and farming practices, in both cases above the answer is that it’s greener to buy the product produced on the other side of the ocean (see article for details).
The article also talks about other important aspects of this debate, such as the sometimes confusing line between science and morality:
Possessing an excessive carbon footprint is rapidly becoming the modern equivalent of wearing a scarlet letter. Because neither the goals nor acceptable emissions limits are clear, however, morality is often mistaken for science. A recent article in New Scientist suggested that the biggest problem arising from the epidemic of obesity is the additional carbon burden that fat people—who tend to eat a lot of meat and travel mostly in cars—place on the environment. Australia briefly debated imposing a carbon tax on families with more than two children; the environmental benefits of abortion have been discussed widely (and simplistically). Bishops of the Church of England have just launched a “carbon fast,” suggesting that during Lent parishioners, rather than giving up chocolate, forgo carbon. (Britons generate an average of a little less than ten tons of carbon per person each year; in the United States, the number is about twice that.)
…Environmental organizations like Carbon Trade Watch say that reducing our carbon footprint will require restructuring our lives, and that before we in the West start urging the developing world to do that we ought to make some sacrifices; anything else would be the modern equivalent of the medieval practice of buying indulgences as a way of expiating one’s sins. “You have to realize that, in the end, people are trying to buy their way out of bad behavior,” Tony Juniper, the director of Friends of the Earth, told me. “Are we really a society that wants to pay rich people not to fly on private jets or countries not to cut down their trees? Is that what, ultimately, is morally right and equitable?”
Sandor dismisses the question. “Frankly, this debate just makes me want to scream,” he told me. “The clock is moving. They are slashing and burning and cutting the forests of the world. It may be a quarter of global warming and we can get the rate to two per cent simply by inventing a preservation credit and making that forest have value in other ways. Who loses when we do that?
“People tell me, well, these are bad guys, and corporate guys who just want to buy the right to pollute are bad, too, and we should not be giving them incentives to stop. But we need to address the problems that exist, not drown in fear or lose ourselves in morality. Behavior changes when you offer incentives. If you want to punish people for being bad corporate citizens, you should go to your local church or synagogue and tell God to punish them. Because that is not our problem. Our problem is global warming, and my job is to reduce greenhouse gases at the lowest possible cost. I say solve the problem and deal with the bad guys somewhere else.”
as well as the tension between environmentalists vs. technological progress:
‘The trouble with you environmentalists is that you see a problem coming and you slam your foot on the brakes and try and steer away from the chasm. The problem is that it often doesn’t work. Maybe the thing to do is jam your foot on the pedal and see if you can just jump across.’ At the time, I thought he was crazy, but as I get older I realize what he was talking about. The whole green movement in technology is in that space. It is an attempt to jump across the chasm.
it’s a long article, but a great read that touches on a lot of the ideas around not only the carbon market but ways of thinking about dealing with global warming (note: we can’t stop it. even if we stopped all greenhouse gas production today, the earth would still continue to warm because of what we’ve already done. we need to DEAL with it). halfway through, i started to get a little exhausted. how can any average consumer, then, be expected to make a good judgment? will the market drive change if no one understands the market? are consumers too overwhelmed, and is it government’s job to regulate? where is the middle? i think the carbon market is definitely PART of the solution, but as previously noted, there are a lot of things it leaves out (like equity), and as discussed here, the calculation is really like hitting a moving target.
however, i do have more hope than i used to about humanity moving forward in a progressive (not regressive) and sustainable way. 2 years ago i was pretty much with the fatalists who were pretty sure we were all totally screwed (damn Al Gore and his depressing movie) unless we all became Amish or something. now, i see dim lights of hope.
Filed in environment | Tagged with greenwashing, new yorker | Comment (0)obama hearts CTL
a follow-up political footnote to the post on synthetic crude for you Obama fans: the New Yorker article reports that from extraction–> production process–>use, a barrel of Coal to Liquid (CTL) fuel (another fuel process being heavily invested in) creates 2x as many total greenhouse gas emissions as a barrel of conventional oil. Barack Obama, along with republican senator Dunning from kentucky, put forward the Coal to Liquid Fuel Promotion Act in January:
U.S. Senators Jim Bunning (R-KY) and Barack Obama (D-IL) today introduced the “Coal-To-Liquid Fuel Promotion Act of 2007.” This bipartisan piece of legislation is based on the bill first introduced by Senators Bunning and Obama last spring and would help create the infrastructure needed for large-scale production of Coal-to-Liquids (CTL) fuel. It is a comprehensive bill that expands tax incentives, creates planning assistance, and develops Department of Defense support for the domestic CTL industry.
In the CTL process, coal is gasified, the gas is run through the Fischer-Tropsch process, and the resulting fuel is refined into products like jet and diesel fuels. The final product is cleaner than conventional fuels because most of the sulfur and nitrogen is removed during the Fischer-Tropsch process.
In the CTL process, coal is gasified, the gas is run through the Fischer-Tropsch process, and the resulting fuel is refined into products like jet and diesel fuels. The final product is cleaner than conventional fuels because most of the sulfur and nitrogen is removed during the Fischer-Tropsch process.
“This bi-partisan piece of legislation that I have re-introduced with Senator Obama today will lay out a plan for the 110th Congress on how we need to work together for energy independence. CTL technology offers America the chance to capitalize on an abundant domestic resource that is found in eastern and western Kentucky and across the country. To help spread the message of how important the CTL process is for energy independence Senator Obama and I will form the Senate Coal-to-Liquid Fuel Caucus to help lead this fight. With a strong investment in CTL, America will wean itself off of foreign sources of energy, and at the same time create jobs for working families back home. CTL is a viable, environmentally friendly energy resource that will help cure America’s addiction to oil.”
since when are coal mines environmentally friendly? not to mention that the CTL process is extremely energy consumptive and produces all kinds of toxins and emissions. i like how they frame it as an “environmentally friendly energy resource” based on the final product being cleaner, ignoring the source and process by which it is produced.
after much criticism, obama backpeddled to say he will only support clean(er) CTL plants. to me, this move is barack obama catering to a special interest/industry in order to gain votes from the other side, and then trying to wiggle out of it when challenged by his voter base, and that pisses me off. more on this and barack’s environmental tendencies (not all bad): http://www.blueclimate.com/blueclimate/2007/06/barack-obama-re.html and http://www.grist.org/feature/2007/07/30/obama/ .
Filed in environment | Tagged with greenwashing, new yorker, obama | Comment (1)synthetic crude
there is an article in the Nov 12 New Yorker about “synthetic crude” being mined from tar sands in Canada. the article states that the US is importing more of this than all sources of oil in the mid-east combined. who knew canada was our #1 source of oil?
“Thanks to what’s happening in the tar sands-output now tops $1 million barrels a day-Canada has become America’s No. 1 source of imported oil. By 2010, tar sands yield is expected to double, and by 2015 to triple. Depending on how you look at things, this is either a heartening prospect or a terrifying one.”
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/11/12/071112fa_fact_kolbert
(unfortunately this link is currently only to the abstract, not the full print article)
terrifying because a) keeping cars and trucks on the road with fossil fuel is just no good for global warming and other related environmental issues, no matter what the source, middle eastern or north american, and b) the mining operation devastates the landscape. the Suncor Millennium Mine in Alberta is 1800 square kilometers, and the entire thing will be razed. i’m sure a lot of people don’t care about a relatively small percentage of the vast canadian wilderness, just like the arguments for oil drilling in the arctic national wildlife refuge centered on it being a “relatively small” area, the arguments against remain the same: it completely destroys what are fairly virgin ecosystems, which affects way more than just those plants and animals who live in it. there are ripple effects for thousands of miles, and it affects the whole planet eventually.
what will probably cause more global concern than the ecosystem destruction is the estimated net effect on the atmosphere:
With unconventional oil extraction, however, the damage to the environment tends to be higher all around—more land gets disturbed, more pollutants are produced, and then there are the greenhouse gases. “All unconventional forms of oil are worse for greenhouse-gas emissions than petroleum,” said Alex Farrell, of the University of California at Berkeley. Farrell and Adam Brandt found that the shift to unconventional oil could add between fifty and four hundred gigatons of carbon to the atmosphere by 2100. There is a great deal of support in Washington for measures that would, in effect, subsidize high-carbon fuels.
i had no idea about these operations or the lobbying going on to support them until i read the article, or that most midwestern cars and trucks were already running on the stuff. it’s amazing to me that after all we’ve learned about how globally destructive they are, people (investors) just aren’t willing to give up with the carbon-based fuels, and instead of spending billions mining another toxic resource invest more heavily in greener technologies. Suncor has a statement on their website about how the profits from the oil sands allow them to invest in sustainable technologies and renewable energy, but i see that as a load of PR bullshit, or at the very least, a nice way of saying “we know we can’t rape the land forever so we’re investing in our company’s future, but while we can, we will.”
Filed in environment | Tagged with greenwashing, new yorker | Comment (1)the hippies of the primate world
interesting snippets from a current piece in the New Yorker on the observed differences between bonobos and chimpanzees, and what that might mean about us:
Fowler and Matthews had just taken their last shower before Christmas. They would be camping for at least nine months, detached from their previous lives except for access, once or twice a week, to brief e-mails. Fowler, emanating self-reliance, was impatient for the exile to come; he had brought little more than a penknife and a copy of “The Seven Pillars of Wisdom.” Matthews was carrying more. As we discovered over time, his equipment included a fur hat, a leather-bound photo album, an inflatable sofa, and goggles decorated with glitter. Matthews is a devotee of the annual Burning Man festival, in the Nevada desert, and this, apparently, had informed his African preparations.
ha! desert…rainforest…either way, you need a furry raver hat, right?
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In 1974, not long after Horn left Africa, Goodall witnessed the start of what she came to call the Four-Year War in Gombe. A chimpanzee population split into two, and, over time, one group wiped out the other, in gory episodes of territorial attack and cannibalism. Chimp aggression was already recognized by science, but chimp warfare was not. “I struggled to come to terms with this new knowledge,” Goodall later wrote. She would wake in the night, haunted by the memory of witnessing a female chimpanzee gorging on the flesh of an infant, “her mouth smeared with blood like some grotesque vampire from the legends of childhood.”
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“The chimpanzee resolves sexual issues with power,” he wrote. “The bonobo resolves power issues with sex.” … “The bonobo is female-dominated, doesn’t have warfare, doesn’t have hunting. And it has all this sex going on, which is problematic to talk about—it’s almost as if people wanted to shove the bonobo under the table.” “The Forgotten Ape” presented itself as a European tonic to American prudishness and the vested interests of chimpanzee scientists. The bonobo was gentle, horny, and—de Waal did not quite say it—Dutch. Bonobos, he argued, had been neglected by science because they inspired embarrassment. They were “sexy,” de Waal wrote (he often uses that word where others might say “sexual”), and they challenged established, bloody accounts of human origins. The bonobo was no less a relative of humans than the chimpanzee, de Waal noted, and its behavior was bound to overthrow “established notions about where we came from and what our behavioral potential is.”
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Humans, chimpanzees, and bonobos share a common ancestor. Was this creature bonobo-like, as Hohmann suspects? Did the ancestral forest environment select for male docility, and did Homo and the chimpanzee then both dump that behavior, independently, as they evolved in less bountiful environments? The modern bonobo holds the answer, Hohmann said; in time, its behavior will start to illuminate such characteristics as relationships between men and women, the purpose of aggression, and the costs and benefits of male bonding…
… “What makes humans and nonhuman primates different?” Hohmann said. “To nail this down, you have to know how these nonhuman primates behave. We have to measure what we can see today. We can use this as a reference for the time that has passed. There will be no other way to do this. And this is what puts urgency into it: because there is no doubt that, in a hundred years, there won’t be great apes in the wild. It would be blind to look away from that. In a hundred years, the forest will be gone. We have to do it now. This forest is the very, very last stronghold. This is all we have.”
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p.s.: HA!
Filed in culture and random linkage | Tagged with new yorker | Comment (0)“The Conciliator”
speaking of the 2008 election, the New Yorker recently published a long and interesting piece on Barack Obama that i think is worth reading.
you may recall that we went to the Obama ’08 rally in Oakland a few months ago, and i was fairly unimpressed by his speech and presence. then, there was the obama v. hilary youtube video that made them both look bad, and then the obama girl thing just made me roll my eyes, and i’d more or less decided to ignore all of it for a while.
the article in the new yorker is quite a thinking piece, however, and brought to light a lot of things not only about the history and character of Obama, but about his carefully constructed image and choices of references. there is a lot of talk in this article about compromise, and how the current Administration is so entrenched in their positions that they can’t see the forest for the trees (sometimes almost literally), refusing to give even a little on positions like the War in Iraq even when the majority of americans have changed their minds. while some find any sign of compromise to be a weakness, particularly in politicians, others see it as the only way forward in a globalized world.
Obama has staked his candidacy on union—on bringing together two halves of America that are profoundly divided, and by associating himself with Lincoln—and he knows what both of those things mean. He calls America’s founding a “grand compromise”: compromise, for him, is not an eroding of principle for the sake of getting something done but a principle in itself—the certainty of uncertainty, the fundament of union. “I would save the Union,” Lincoln wrote, in a letter to Horace Greeley, the editor of the New York Tribune. “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.” “I like to believe that for Lincoln it was never a matter of abandoning conviction for the sake of expediency,” Obama writes. “Rather . . . that we must talk and reach for common understandings, precisely because all of us are imperfect and can never act with the certainty that God is on our side.”
i heard Hilary Clinton speaking on the radio again the other day, and her voice just grates my nerves, and i find her entirely too aggressive. she’s got quite the ego to stand on, and certainly enough experience for the job, but i just don’t empathize with her very much at all. Nader and Kucinich, while i admire their convictions, i think are sadly too ideological to play the real game, and i think are better suited to fight against corruption OUTSIDE the Oval Office, which I hope they continue to do. they’ll get more done that way.
this is not to say i’m on the Obama bandwagon just yet. i admire his honesty about his past (no “i didn’t inhale” statements coming from this guy), but i have to agree that his still-waters-run-deep MO is sort of worrisome in terms of perception. in the world of global politics, always acting like the calm inside the storm might lead to a great amount of distrust on the part of foreign counterparts, who are always going to suspect he’s hiding something, and might lead the american public to think he’s not passionate enough or paying attention. is it better for a head of state to appear charismatic and engaged, or thoughtful and reflective? the article talks about his mannerism being very medical – like a doctor who comes in a pokes and prods and listens and nods, but never gets emotional. i’m not sure how i feel about the leader of the free world being so stoic and reserved. i feel like what we need is someone who inspires us. unfortunately, i haven’t seen that candidate yet.
Filed in politics and news | Tagged with new yorker, obama | Comment (1)
