Postcards from the Planet

Now that President Obama has been sworn in, we hope to see a lot of changes in the American view of science. One cartoon today in our local newspaper (the Kingston, NY Daily Freeman) shows Science as an old man being let out of a dungeon by Obama! Hopefully, scientists will benefit from increased respect for their work, and we will all benefit from a more realistic view of some of the science-based problems facing our nation and our Earth.

Checking the White House website today, I found the Energy and Environment agenda for the Obama-Biden administration. Take a look!

This year’s annual meeting of the UN Climate Change Conference is taking place in Poland. More than 40 small island nations have banded together to talk about their concerns. Global climate change looks like a really bad situation for nations such as Samoa, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Barbados, Maldives, Philippines and Fiji. They have a lot to lose if current predictions of large global sea level rises do happen, just like other beachfront residential and resort areas around the world.

The threatened countries would like to see real worldwide progress in curbing emissions and hopefully preventing rapid sea level rises. You can read about the issues here: Threatened Island Nations.
For details on the Poznan, Poland conference, see Climate Change Conference. This is an important conference as the world leaders are trying to decide on the baselines for a new international climate change treaty when the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.

In a long and thought-provoking article in the New York Times last Sunday (November 9th, 2008), Al Gore wrote this about the election of Barack Obama:

THE inspiring and transformative choice by the American people to elect Barack Obama as our 44th president lays the foundation for another fateful choice that he — and we — must make this January to begin an emergency rescue of human civilization from the imminent and rapidly growing threat posed by the climate crisis.

and he went on to say that:

Economists across the spectrum — including Martin Feldstein and Lawrence Summers — agree that large and rapid investments in a jobs-intensive infrastructure initiative is the best way to revive our economy in a quick and sustainable way.

In short, Al Gore–and many others–propose that the United States create a massive investment in sustainable energy technology–solar, wind, water, and more–as a way of revitalizing our American economy, much as the switch to information technology changed the American economy in the 1980s and 1990s.

The full article can be found here: The Climate for Change.

Within minutes of Senator Barack Obama’s becoming our new President-elect, articles began to appear to suggest what legislation he should propose to deal with the pressing problems facing the United States. The Union of Concerned Scientists makes a great case that those problems can be addressed with a unified approach: “We are looking to the new president and Congress to work together to build a clean energy economy that will create millions of new jobs here at home, expand capital investment, make our nation less dependent on oil, and prevent the worst consequences of global warming.” Taken from this article: Obama Administration, New Congress Should Mean Aggressive Approach to Global Warming, Science Group Says.

The Washington Post has a series of photographs showing human effects on our planet. You can find them here.

A group of concerned citizens and scientists called Science Debate 2008 has released the presidential candidates’ answers to the “top 14 Science questions facing America.” As you can imagine, it took a lot of work for the group to come up with only 14 questions — they started with 3,400 questions! Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama answered the 14 questions thoughtfully and at length, and the answers are presented side by side so you can compare them.

Here’s the link: Science Debate 2008

More and more people worldwide are thinking about ways to reduce their personal or business carbon footprints. Your carbon footprint is basically how much CO2 you are putting into the atmosphere. There are so many ways that we contribute that CO2, ranging from home energy use (heating, cooling, lighting, cooking) to transportation (car, train, bus, plane) and consumption (manufacturing use, how far goods — including food — travel) and it’s hard to calculate your personal share. If you look online, you’ll find many different carbon calculators. Two that are frequently recommended are the EPA Carbon Calculator and the “Inconvenient Truth” Carbon Calculator .
Once you figure out your carbon footprint, you can begin to work on ways to reduce it, whether by using more renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, or by cutting your energy use. You can also find eco-footprint calculators, which rate your impact on the global ecosystem in other areas, such as pollutants and toxic chemicals.

“The polar bear, whose summertime Arctic hunting grounds have been greatly reduced by a warming climate, will be placed under the protection of the Endangered Species Act,” says the New York Times in this article: Polar Bear is Made a Protected Species .

To me, what is most interesting about the listing of the Polar Bear as “protected” (which is a legal term that indicates certain laws fall into place) is that the Interior Secretary, Dirk Kempthorne, would clearly have preferred NOT to list the Polar Bear. While the listing acknowledges that the reduction in Arctic sea ice (caused by global warming, according to scientists) threatens the Polar Bear’s survival, long-term, the comments made by the Secretary make it clear he doesn’t think anything needs to be done about global warming–at the same time, the ruling doesn’t change the regulations on the oil and gas industry one bit.

I had a conversation today with some friends about reducing gas use. It got me thinking about my overall carbon footprint–how much oil/natural gas/petroleum I use–both on a daily basis and on a lifetime basis. What goes into a personal carbon footprint?

How much traveling you do: cars, planes, trains–they all use energy
How much traveling your food does: the farther your food comes from, the more energy it uses getting to you.
How much fertilizer your food requires to grow (and how much goes on your lawn): many fertilizers are made from petroleum sources
How much lawn you have: mowing and fertilizing a lawn takes a lot of oil–more than trees (which absorb carbon) or shrubs (which also absorb carbon)
How big your house is: bigger houses use more resources, both to heat and cool and to build
How big your car is and how much you drive

A tiny step I’ve taken toward a smaller carbon footprint: I grow some of my food–not much, just a little–and I try to shop at my local farmers’ market. I’m also trying not to drive on Fridays.

This company Ecosecurities Group is one of the companies that creates a market in carbon offsets. Its founders, according to today’s Wall Street Journal, are multimillionaires. “Marc Stuart and Pedro Moura Costa have become multimillionaires in a booming new market designed to fight global warming.” (WSJ, 4/14/2008, “Two Carbon Market Millionaires Take a Hit as UN Clamps Down”).

Apparently, Ecosecurities has a bit of trouble actually delivering those carbon offsets, even though it is (according to its own web site) “one of the world’s largest developers and suppliers of emission reductions, for both the compliance and voluntary markets.”