Perpetual Innovation

Category: global warming

  • Obama’s Climate Policy Is a Hot Mess – WSJ

    Obama’s Climate Policy Is a Hot Mess – WSJ:

    Bjorn Lomborg may have been best know for his massive tomb of a book entitled The Skeptical Environmentalist. Lomborg (2007) in The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World “may be the best source for reviewing the facts about quality of life, global
    warming, and the optimal approaches for addressing the issues.” (Hall, Taylor, Zapalski, & Hall, 2009, p. 5)

    Apparently he has since gone off to consult for oil & gas interest. That’s not all bad, but it does mean that he may not be unbiased as seemed to be the case during his Skeptical days.

    Bjorn talks about, essentially, the bang for the buck ($US, in this case). The current Obama plan doesn’t do much to move the global warming needle, especially given the costs. On the one hand, Obama will say that we have to start somewhere. In this case, and in several others, Bjorn simply says that this won’t do much good. A smart guy like that should suggest better alternatives.

    We, at SBPlan, argue that there are two monster places to start. AND neither requires the special help of government, really. Both are energy efficiency (EE) focused. Two EE business models that SBP especially likes are related to telecommuting using remote work centers and a pay-forward model
    of promoting energy efficiency in all buildings – residential, commercial and
    government. Since both of these initiatives save money, they offer a special win-win-win of sustainability (Employees, Employers and Environment, in this case).

    I’m a little disappointing that Bjorn has been simply complaining about the expense and the likely lack of success from various government initiatives, not offering up his own recommendations. It’s easy to complain and stop progress, but I give no respect to someone who does not offer up better alternatives. In the case of our non-sustainable practices of energy, the olde business as usual (BAU) model is a failed business model; it is only a matter of time for this living beyond our means model of existence will come crashing down.

    Bjorn offers up more research, presumably to make renewables more affordable. And touts the Fracking-NatGas revolutions as a massive windfall for reducing our pollution and greenhouse gases away from coal. NatGas is both good and bad; it shifts us away from really dirty energy associated with coal. Yeah!:-) But it reduced the costs and availability of all oil, gas and coal such that we may have tagged on another 50 years worth of fossil fuels to global economies before we really start to run low(er) and basic economics starts to really solves our addiction to fossil fuels. 

    If you read Bjorn’s Skeptical Environmentalist, you will find that he totally believes that there is global warming and that man is a big (?major?) contributor. When you read this book you will agree, even before including the 10 record hot years since he published in 2007. What he does say, forcefully then, and now, is that we need to focus on the efforts that will result the move benefits. Huge government spending on reducing CO2, especially in developing countries, may have little, none, or even negative results. 

    Bjorn ended up in a big tiff over the 2007 book Skeptical Environmentalist. If it was an opinion piece then it would be okay to take the liberties that he did with interpreting the results; but as a scientific book, he had gone way to far. The  Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty (DCSD) in Bjorn’s home country, charged him with academic dishonesty in the book. This ruling went against Bjorn. On appeal the charge of scientific dishonesty was sent back for a do-over, where it stalled out.

    Bjorg’s follow Skeptical Environmentalist book(s) have titles that start with “Cool it!”, concentrating on what to do that will likely have the most (short-term) benefits. 

    Bjorg, don’t just complain in op-eds about Obama and the other 200 countries who signed the Paris greenhouse deal this April (agreed to in Dec 2015). The average person reading this op-ed would think that we all should do nothing and wait for Bill Gates Foundation to find a cure. Give people real suggestions for actions. Or, are you simply trying to sell your books and consulting?

    References

    Hall, E., Taylor, S., Zapalski, C., & Hall, T.
    (2009). Sustainability in education: Green in the facilities, but not in the
    classrooms. Proceedings of the Society for Advancement of Management,
    USA.
    Lomborg, Bjorn. (2007). The skeptical environmentalist: Measuring the real state of the world. NY:
    Cambridge University Press.

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  • A Song Of Fire And No Ice: We Just Had Our Fourth Record-Breaking Hottest Month In A Row This Year | ThinkProgress

    A Song Of Fire And No Ice: We Just Had Our Fourth Record-Breaking Hottest Month In A Row This Year | ThinkProgress:

    Oh poop, crap, scat!.

    Each month of 2016 has been a record hot month. (Even though 2015 was wicked record hot with 10 months matching or exceeding record highs!)

    April blew past the last record in 2015 by a mile or two (+0.28 C or +0.43 F). [See NASA summary data here. Note that you have to go back to 1992 to find the first negative monthly number (-1) below average, and much further to the 1970s to find a year with a good spattering of negative numbers (below the mean).]

    If the first quarter holds true in predicting the full year, 2016 will take us to about +1.3 d C, almost three-forths of the way to that magical +2 d Centigrade that so many scientist warn we need to stay away from.

    Good news, we’ll be able to navigate the north pole by boat & barge form months this year. China’s gonna love that, avoiding the Panama Canal.

    The early thaw and dry conditions results in ugly fire conditions as demonstrated by the Alberta fires.

    Ironically, the fires caused by global warming, aggravate and accentuate the very factors that cause — you guessed it, global warming.

    And, in a double irony, the oil sands have a very heavy carbon footprint and environmental footprint. (Do a Google search on Alberta “Oil Sands before and after”.)  Visit Canadian TV News to look at McMurray fires.

    Fire and no ice!.

    Hot. Sad, True.

    Poop!:-(

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  • Study Confirms World’s Coastal Cities Unsavable If We Don’t Slash Carbon Pollution | ThinkProgress

    Study Confirms World’s Coastal Cities Unsavable If We Don’t Slash Carbon Pollution | ThinkProgress:

    This article discusses the melt-off of Antarctica as discussed in a new Nature article. They did a better and more detailed analysis of the volume of water that would move into oceans as the Antarctic melts. They resolved a few of the issues that were not fully addressed by other studies. In addition to the models of ice volume/dynamics, they compared current warming with other times in history, thus offering benchmarks for validating their analysis.

    Even as many areas of Antarctica have been collapsing at an alarming rate, there has also been evidence of the snow building in the center of the (island? of Antarctica). This Nature study seems to resolve these apparent inconsistencies. They build a strong argument that we need to do a LOT now, not later. Many coastal cities will partially or totally under water if we continue for several more decades under the old business-as-usual model of carbon emissions.

    DeConto and Pollard (2016) in their article Contribution of Antarctica to Past and Future Sea-Level Rise look at ice dynamics to better analyze the volume of ice that should be displaced into the ocean waters as temperatures rise. They ran models under business-as-usual and more aggressive action scenarios. Then, they paired their results with key times in history where temperatures where high and sea-levels rose.

    They concluded that a likely scenario if we delay action is 1 meter (3.28 ft.)  of sea-level rise by end of century and 15 meters (~50 ft) by 2500 that would be attributable to antarctic ice melt. Add thermal expansion and other factors and this represents an ugly, ugly prospect.

    Reference

    DeConto, R. M., & Pollard, D. (2016). Contribution of Antarctica to past and future sea-level rise. Nature, 531(7596), 591–597. doi:10.1038/nature17145

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  • 2015 hottest year, by a mile

    Sadly, 2015 was really hot. Record hot. And it set a record for breaking the record (set last year in 2014).
    Ouch, ouch and double ouch!.
    This was a wicked El Nino year. Only an El Nino year last century competes with the hottest 14 years this century. Apparently, the follow through from El Nino starting in 2015 should leave 2016 as a rather hot year.
    One of the best summations on the subject came from NPR. Or Global Warming in Wikipedia, where you will find the best, most current, information on sustainability in the world.
    Starting in 2014, we had half of the months as record hottest months. 2015 had most of the months being the hottest on record; 10 months in 2015 matched or exceeded all time recorded history records! (Ask when we last had a record COLD year, or even a record COLD month, and you will get goose bumps!)
    Fortunately — finally — most of the people in the US are finally coming around to the fact the we do, in fact, have global warming. See blog here.
    As CO2 blasted past 400 ppm in 2015, we have only just begun this journey into uncharted territory. And, CO2 can be expected to persist in the atmosphere for about 100 years.
    It took the earth 50 to 500 million years to store up the coal and oil we seem determined to burn up in about 2 centuries. And in the process we are releasing mass quantities of carbon into earth’s ecosystem that has been happily sequestered, like diamonds in the rough, for 100 million years or more.
    We at SustainZine, propose actions that we all could take immediately. Within a day or so, we all could have taken energy efficiency actions on our homes, businesses and churches. Wa-la… Save energy, save money, save the environment (a little for each of us). A perpetuity of savings.
    Telecommuting/telework is a wonderful place to start with businesses. Huge savings of energy, time and life. A perpetuity of savings if the non-drive to work, continues to work.
    And there are many things like this that we can do without the “help” of government.
    Education, likewise, is critical for us all to start making more informed decisions. There are easy things that we all should be doing, right here, right now. We also need to be continually aware of the BIG factors, so that they are in the forefront of our future decisions and actions.
    Business as usual is something we need to continually question. That’s what got us into this situation. Unconscious decisions are still decisions.
    A business without a sustainability plan, does not really have a business plan.
    2016 seems like a year when sustainability will start to gain firm footing in the US. Each of us can start by save a watt and save a gallon.

  • Economists costs will be sooner and bigger for global temps

    Here is what it kind of a think if we keep doing business as usual! Things could be worse and sinner than previously expected.
    http://www.sustainablebrands.com/news_and_views/new_metrics/mike_hower/economists_say_climate_impacts_will_be_worse_previously_believ?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=schtweets&utm_campaign=social