Reclaiming The Stuff That Matters

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to read the results of a poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research showing that three-quarters of Americans are not very worried about the effects of climate change. After all, a lot of money and energy has gone into sowing doubt when it comes to climate science.

The inundation of daily data, from gossip to war to financial news to games and local weather that we call the Information Age also makes it easy to miss the links between various developments unless those links are helpfully made in the media, but then, often with round-the-clock media, the links take on an alarmist character. And unless it affects them directly, people can only stay in a state of panic for a short time before they get dulled to the noise.

FlowerHouse, a project in Detroit to try and reclaim a ruined home with fresh flowers. All images: FlowerHouse

FlowerHouse, a project in Detroit to transform a ruined home with fresh flowers.
All images: FlowerHouse

After all, how many people really care that climate change is responsible for the sudden death, in the space of a single month, of half the remaining population of the curiously snouted and endangered saiga antelope? Tens of thousands of wild antelope just dropped dead. But does that really affect anyone’s day-to-day life? Maybe if it were half the dogs in the country. Or half the cattle. The saiga antelope are strange, unique and far away. But we need to talk about these weird animals as if they matter. Because they do.

The lack of climate worry would be a problem if the United States itself didn’t weigh so heavily on the global climate change balance, both in terms of cause and effect.

In 2012, the top 10 GHG emitters accounted for more than two thirds of the global emissions total. Find the newest data on global greenhouse gas emissions on the CAIT Climate Data Explorer, click here for an interactive version of this graph. Source: World Resources Institute.

In 2012, the top 10 GHG emitters accounted for more than two thirds of the global emissions total. Find the newest data on global greenhouse gas emissions on the CAIT Climate Data Explorer, click here for an interactive version of this graph.
Source: World Resources Institute.

It’s not just the production of greenhouse gases, or the consumption of energy and goods, either. Wars – and the U.S. has a lot of influence when it comes to wars, both actively and in weapons manufacture – have a major environmental impact. And wars are already being fought over the effects of climate change, too – water wars, oil wars. We need to be aware of the International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict as if it matters to us personally, because it does.

I hear from many people, and I read, that great hope is placed in major technological breakthroughs, big fixes for big problems, solutions that will absolve individuals and industries and countries from having to reconsider what the desire to stick to business as usual really means.

FlowerHouse promotes sustainability and responsibility to American-grown flower farms.

FlowerHouse promotes sustainability and responsibility to American-grown flower farms.

The fact that three-quarters of the population in one of the world’s major contributors to climate change isn’t worried at all about climate change is probably one of the main reasons that real solutions aren’t being implemented on a wider scale. Sure, renewables are making progress, but fossil fuel production and consumption have expanded dramatically in the U.S. over the past few years.

A recent study says that worriers tend to be creative problem solvers. So, by extension, a nation of non-worriers isn’t going to engage overmuch in problem solving because they don’t see the necessity.

I’m not advocating round-the-clock worrying, which doesn’t do anyone much good.

Some people try to ignore climate change as just another turn of the global screw, too big for humans to fix.

Some groups, mainly in the U.S., try to divert attention from imminent climate change impact on crops, lifestyles, water supplies and shorelines. Apparently, 300 million people have something else to think about, and I know that plenty of those people have real, pressing issues that are as important to them as future notions of rising waters and wild temperatures.

Still: Talk about the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference in Paris as if it matters. Because it does.

Change is coming, it’s coming soon, and sugar-coating that reality will just make adjusting to the changes harder when they are no longer something that can be ignored.

The FlowerHouse is a collective effort to reclaim what's been abandoned, condemned and neglected.

The FlowerHouse is a collective effort to reclaim what’s been abandoned, condemned and neglected.

A Larger Slice

Click to go to interactive infographic. Graphic: Duncan Clark and Kiln, drawing on work by Mike Bostock and Jason Davies via The Guardian

Click here to go to interactive infographic.
Graphic: Duncan Clark and Kiln, drawing on work by Mike Bostock and Jason Davies
via The Guardian

The infographic above came out in The Guardian, and is an exploration of the role played by private companies, nation-states and state-run companies in the generation of greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. There are 90 companies listed – all but seven are companies that deal mainly in fossil fuels.

The infographic below is an exercise in refinement. Lars Boelen was reading the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook, edition 2013 that came out in early November. He came across the small pie chart here,

Carbon budget for 2 C° Source: IEA via Stormglas

Carbon budget for 2 C°
Source: IEA via Stormglas

which illustrates the ‘remaining budget’ of carbon emissions left for humanity to generate if the goal is to limit a global temperature increase to 2 C°.

Mr. Boelen was irritated by the simplicity of the chart, which had the largest slice allocated to 1750 – 2011.

The pie chart implies, to me at least, that we – meaning the current generations – aren’t necessarily responsible for the cumulative effect of carbon emissions because, after all, this is a process that has been going on since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

Why should we take all the blame and by extension, have to make drastic changes?

Mr. Boelen thought the pie chart needed a bit of refinement, and lo, the distribution of culpability looks a bit different when we find out that the vast majority of ‘carbon budget’ has been ‘spent’ (or perhaps more accurately, ‘squandered with profligacy’) since 1970.

Almost all the major fossil fuel companies in the top infographic, at least in their original forms, were founded in the glory years of oil and gas discovery between 1870 and 1920, although the past 30 years have seen countless mergers. The companies have grown ever larger. As for nation-states, China accounts for 8.5% of emissions, with a continued rise due to its dependence on coal.

Together, according to the soberly-titled report published in the journal Climate Change, Tracing anthropogenic carbon dioxide and methane emissions to fossil fuel and cement producers, 1854–2010, these companies account for two-thirds of all greenhouse gas emissions since the dawn of the industrial era.

Half of all emissions have occurred in the past 25 years alone.

So when we hear about how hard it will be to curb emissions, or that ‘this is the way things are done’ and how expensive it will be to change course, keep in mind that there is no long history or tradition behind our current carbon spending spree. This is as new as cars that are still driving on the road today.

Carbon Budget  Graphic: Lars Boelen

Carbon Budget
Graphic: Lars Boelen

Mobile Gardens

Bus-top gardens, the planting of gardens on the elevated flat space of urban bus tops, is a nice subversion of how we usually think of gardens.

Namely, we think of gardening as a place-specific activity. Rooted in place, not to put too fine a point on it. So why drive gardens around on the daily commute?

A Phyto Kinetic prototype bus in Girona, Spain. Photo: Phyto Kinetic

A Phyto Kinetic prototype bus in Girona, Spain.
Photo: Phyto Kinetic

Because in an urban setting the size of New York City, for example, landscaping on top of buses could mean 35 more acres of green space.

Marc Granan has started a new project, Phyto Kinetic, in Spain. Taking notes and learning from an earlier project in the US (Bus Roots), he utlized thin sheets of hydroponic foam reduce the overall weight of the traveling garden. Irrigation takes place using water from the vehicle’s air-conditioning system. Granan argues that bus gardens could be just the beginning – why not plant garden fleets atop city vehicles?

A Phyto Kinetic green van. Photo: Phyto Kinetic

A Phyto Kinetic green van.
Photo: Phyto Kinetic

Bus Roots founder Marco Castro hoped to “reclaim forgotten space, increase quality of life and grow the amount of green spaces.”

Bus-top gardens might be, for the moment, a starry-eyed vision that falls into the category of ‘doing something is better than doing nothing’. But if maintenance and weight challenges can be overcome, it might help offset greenhouse-gas emissions at a key urban source, provide a bit of green magic and inspiration to city streets, and also open a whole new sector for jobs in urban gardening.

More:

Visit Bus Roots here.

Visit Phyto Kinetic here.

HuffingtonPost article on Phyto Kinetic – Rooftop Gardens On Buses Makes Total Sense, And Here’s Why by Salvatore Cardoni

2010 Gizmag article on the Bus Roots project – Living garden on bus rooftop to add some rolling green to city streets by Darren Quick

Carbon Non-Neutrality

Balancing rocks Artist: Michael Grab via Amazing Zone

Allowing the Keystone pipeline to be built requires a finding that doing so would be in our nation’s interest. And our national interest will be served only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution. The net effects of the pipeline’s impact on our climate will be absolutely critical to determining whether this project is allowed to go forward.

U.S. President Obama, 25 June 2013

It was good to hear the U.S President make a broad speech on climate change and how he sees the role of the United States vis-a-vis climate change challenges.

It was also good to hear him speak directly to the ongoing controversy regarding the Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry oil extracted from Canadian tar sands through the United States.

What was disappointing was the mention of the Keystone XL in conjunction with any notion of carbon neutrality. Even if every single aspect of the Keystone XL pipeline itself were able to meet some definition of being ‘carbon neutral’, i.e. by “achieving net zero carbon emissions by balancing a measured amount of carbon released with an equivalent amount sequestered or offset, or buying enough carbon credits to make up the difference“*, and even if the extraction of the oil from the tar sands wasn’t included in the calculation, the fact of the matter is that this pipeline is just one more way of delivering our energy drug of choice – oil – into the U.S. energy cycle.

Rapeseed field

Rapeseed field

Way back when, before 2008, people were still talking about ‘peak oil’ and subsidies abounded for renewable alternatives. If there was one good aspect to the notion of running out of oil, it was the acknowledgement that most alternatives released less CO2 into the atmosphere over the long term.

Then came the financial meltdowns, and the miraculous discoveries of new oil reserves. And now we find ourselves talking more about adaptation and resignation to fossil-fuel use as the main path towards energy independence.

Overall, the President’s speech was promising and left little doubt that under Barack Obama, climate change issues are being taken seriously. It is a welcome call to action from one of the world’s largest economies, and one of its most influential polluters.

Yet there’s still that support of oil as a main source of American energy independence.

I am not neutral when it comes to the use of fossil fuels: ‘Carbon neutral’ refers to a balance that is hard to achieve in the best of circumstances, and impossible when talking about the traditional fossil fuel economy.

Every major federal investment made into the exploitation of this fuel source is an investment that wasn’t made into a better, cleaner, renewable solution.

It’s an investment into the past, not the future.

Artist: Michael Grab via Amazing Art

Artist: Michael Grab via Amazing Art

*Definition from Wikipedia. There are many variations of what ‘carbon neutral’ actually means in various contexts, but this one seemed the most straightforward.

Transcript of the full speech here.

Getting There From Here (1)

The on and off of Beijing air pollution.
For an interactive look at what major cities would look like with the level of pollution that Beijing experienced during the 2012-13 winter, go to the source of this image: Marketplace.org

China’s cabinet recently released the outline of a strategy to deal with its ‘airpocalypse’, the devastating air pollution levels in many of its major cities. The main goal is to reduce industrial emissions by 30% by the end of 2017.

In a ten-point plan, the State Council proposes making sure that construction projects pass environmental evaluations before permission to build is granted; emergency response plans for high-pollution periods (including traffic reduction and industry emission limits); stricter controls on the expansion of heavily polluting industries. The industries set to face special emission limits include iron and steel, cement, and petrochemicals.

While it’s a tremendous step forward to have the government of China – currently the world’s foremost source of greenhouse gas emissions – acknowledge the urgent need for a strategy in emissions reduction, it’s also a little hard to see how that will dovetail with massive economic expansion based in large part upon the very industries which are set to face strict emissions limits or any kind of business-as-usual approach.

One way might be the outsourcing of emissions within China, i.e. locating some industries to less populous provinces to reduce pollution in the larger cities. Carbon outsourcing accounts for 50-80% of emissions in Shanghai and Beijing.

A graphic showing how coastal provinces of China are outsourcing their greenhouse gas emissions by importing goods from less developed provinces, 2013.  Source: University of Maryland via The Guardian

A graphic showing how coastal provinces of China are outsourcing their greenhouse gas emissions by importing goods from less developed provinces, 2013.
Source: University of Maryland via The Guardian

For me, this isn’t really a solution so much as a delay and repositioning of the same problem – just because pollution isn’t on your front doorstep doesn’t mean it’s any less dangerous.

According to Steven Davis, the University of California professor at Irvine who led a study on emissions outsourcing in China, the country is taking a short-term solution that comes at the cost of genuine improvements through the modernization of the highly polluting coal-based industrial production still common in the provinces.

“The tragedy of this is that the easiest and cheapest cuts in emissions are in these provinces in the interior where the technologies are antiquated and with even slight improvements could be much, much cleaner,” Davis said. The net effect of the outsourcing is to make it far less likely China would reach its climate targets.

In this case, out of sight doesn’t equal out of mind.

More:

Guardian articleChina launches new measures to tackle air pollution by Jennifer Duggan

Guardian articleChina’s rich provinces outsource emissions to less developed areas by Suzanne Goldenberg

PNAS.org studyOutsourcing CO2 within China by Kuishuang Feng, Steven J. Davis, Laixiang Sun, Xin Li, Dabo Guan, Weidong Liu, Zhu Liu,Klaus Hubacek

The Big Flow

This is a large infographic, but worth having a look through for a few minutes. The gist? Burning fossil fuels accounts for 65% of greenhouse gas emissions. Deforestation (i.e. Land Use Change) accounts for almost 15%.

World GHG Emissions Flow Chart 2010 Source: Ecofys / ANS Bank

World GHG Emissions Flow Chart 2010
Source: Ecofys / ANS Bank

View the entire chart here.