Brazil Approves Huge Dam in the Amazon
The Brazilian government has given approval for the construction of a massive dam in the Amazon state of Para. This controversial project would devastate 500 sq km of the rainforest, and affect the livelihoods of over 12,000 indigenous people. The Belo Monte dam would be the third largest in the world at 11,000 MW, and provide electricity to 23 million homes to help meet Brazil’s growing energy demands. Reported by the BBC.
EU to Classify Palm Oil Plantations as Forests
Palm oil plantation expansion across Southeast Asia has led to massive amounts of rainforest destruction over the past few decades. Palm oil, an important cash crop for the region, is used as a cooking oil, in cosmetics products, and as a biofuel. According to a leaked document from the European Commission at Mongabay. the EU may allow the classification of palm oil plantations that were converted from rainforest as “forest”, thereby meeting their sustainability criteria. Should this be approved, it could lead to further destruction of the forests of the region – exacerbating climate change and destroying biodiversity.
New Wind Turbine Design Based on Jet Engines Could Boost Efficiency by 4X
Flodesign, a Massachusetts-based wind turbine company has just received over $35 million in venture capital and $8 million in grants from the DOE to bring their revolutionary design to market. Should its performance claims be true, it could reduce the cost of generating wind energy by half. Read more and watch a video of the design at Treehugger.
The U.N. panel that oversees the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES) has declared that the export of Atlantic bluefin tuna should be banned in order to save the species from possible extinction.
“In our opinion, the criteria for including the species in appendix 1 are met and international commercial trade in bluefin tuna should be prohibited,” David Morgan, head of CITES scientific unit, told a news briefing.
Bluefin Tuna
This follows a proposal by Monaco (pdf) to list the bluefin under appendix I of CITES, meaning that the species is threatened with extinction and that international trade would be banned.
Bluefin tuna, prized in sushi restaurants worldwide, fetch high prices in international markets, with individual fish having sold for over $150,000 in Japan. Japan, which imports more that 80% of the the bluefin tuna caught in the Atlantic and Mediterranean, is opposed to listing the bluefin as endangered and is expected to put up a fierce fight at the next CITES meeting in Doha in March.
Bluefin have been decimated in recent years by overfishing in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. In 2009, over 50,000 tons of bluefin were harvested, well above the sustainable recommended levels. Continue reading Bluefin Tuna, an Endangered Species
The bicycle is increasingly being seen as a viable urban transportation alternative in cities worldwide. Bike commuting has clear health, traffic congestion, and environmental benefits, and should be encouraged to help make cities more livable and sustainable.
I love urban biking. The idea of cruising the streets in traffic is my idea of a good time. Recognizing that this practice might not be everyone’s cup of tea, I overwhelmingly support efforts to make urban areas more bike friendly, such as the installation of bike lanes.
I see three benefits to encouraging bicycles as a viable form of urban transportation:
Cycling has clear health benefits, particularly with the obesity epidemic sweeping the country.
Increasing the number of bicyclists for commuting or running errands decreases the number of cars on the road, thereby helping to ease traffic congestion.
It is one of the most environmentally friendly forms of transportation, causing neither greenhouse gases nor various forms of air pollution.
After living in San Francisco for five months, I have found that this a great place in which to get around by bike.
Not only is the city relatively compact, but there are well-defined bike lanes and routes throughout the city. The majority of the bike routes allow riders to avoid some of the more substantial hills and highly trafficked streets. Couple these benefits with the temperate climate, the incredible vistas, and San Francisco is a great place to ride year round.
China has been rapidly building up its renewable energy production and investing in sustainable energy while the U.S. continues to stall and take small incremental steps. Failing to assess the stakes of the global sustainable energy race could be a costly missed opportunity for the U.S. economy.
It is easy to be impressed by the pace and robustness with which the Chinese are developing clean energy technologies. Given its economic ascent, it should be no surprise that the nation is outpacing expectations in its efforts to increase energy efficiency, boost the production of renewable energy, and advance other 21st century opportunities like smarter electricity grids, electric cars, and high speed rail. They have the largest and fastest growing market for these goods, and they have the active political and economic support of the government in securing the resources to advance these industries. It is also increasingly apparent that it is in China’s interest for the U.S. to continue lagging behind.
Residents walk pass a group of solar power panels in Shenyang (Source: AFP & Google News)
Nations like China “aren’t playing for second place,” Obama said. “They’re putting more emphasis on math and science. They’re rebuilding their infrastructure. They’re making serious investments in clean energy because they want those jobs.”
The President is right to draw attention to this point. While America continues to dawdle, China is racing ahead. They do want those jobs; in fact, they want to dominate all of the industries that support them. Why wouldn’t they? Clean and sustainable energy offers great promise for economic growth and development, and China wants the world to buy their wind turbines, solar panels, and electric cars.
President Obama discussing clean energy during the state of the union. Source: whitehouse.gov
Going into his first State of the Union address to Congress, I was curious to see if Obama would scale back initiatives that he has placed at the center of his agenda in the face of the US’ fiscal problems. I wanted to highlight and provide commentary of his points relevant to Project Groundswell – namely energy, climate change, and transportation.
Obama’s words are in italics. My comments are in plain text. His first mention has to do with infrastructure and transportation:
Next, we can put Americans to work today building the infrastructure of tomorrow. From the first railroads to the Interstate Highway System, our nation has always been built to compete. There’s no reason Europe or China should have the fastest trains, or the new factories that manufacture clean energy products.
For anyone who has travelled in Europe or East Asia, the convenience of high-speed rail is without question. The US has eschewed rail as a viable form of transportation (except the northeast corridor) in favor of automobile and air travel. Rail travel has numerous benefits including: comfort, direct access to the center of cities, less of a hassle compared with air travel (security checkpoints, baggage claim), not to mention the environmental benefits. Those that argue that investing in rail travel will involve massive government subsidies fail to mention that air travel and roadways receive massive subsidies.
Tomorrow, I’ll visit Tampa, Florida, where workers will soon break ground on a new high-speed railroad funded by the Recovery Act. There are projects like that all across this country that will create jobs and help move our nation’s goods, services, and information.
The Florida high speed rail network is a start (watch Obama and Biden in Florida announcing this yesterday)– however the fact that high speed rail is such a miniscule part of our national transportation system is unlikely to change very rapidly in the near future. The California high-speed rail plan, linking Sacramento, San Francisco/San Jose, Los Angeles, and San Diego is expected to cost upwards of $40 billion and take decades to build. This initiative was just awarded $2.25 billion in stimulus funds, out of a total of $8 billion just announced.I support these efforts, and wish that larger, more concrete plans were underway nationwide.
The recent earthquake in Haiti has highlighted a whole host of issues related to development, poverty, the environment, and security. Countries in which natural resources are mismanaged, degraded, or heavily exploited are more susceptible to the devastation brought on by environmental change, and when extreme events and conflicts do occur, these countries are far less likely to effectively respond to the crisis.
Even before the earthquake in Haiti, decades and indeed centuries of deforestation left the country with declining agricultural yields, heavy erosion, and few natural buffers to limit the possibility of landslides, flooding, and subsequent structural failures during the onslaught of seasonal tropical storms and hurricanes. The destruction brought about during the recent earthquake and the 2008 hurricane season illustrated this fact in painfully clear terms.
In this regard, Haiti is not unlike a great deal of other countries in the developing world. While it is an extreme case, it is not a unique one, and increasingly the security community is drawing the linkages between the role natural resources, and now climate change, play in fueling instability and even worse, armed conflict. Continue reading The New Security Climate: Environmental Vulnerability
California has approved a statewide green building code (CALGREEN) that sets minimum standards for green building in the state. This initiative is designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and conserve water, and by incorporating it into the existing building code, should minimize compliance costs.
Governor Schwarzenegger of California
Last week, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced that the California Building Standards Commission had approved a new Green Building Standards Code, known as CALGREEN (pdf). These new set of building standards, applying only to new construction and taking effect January of 2011, is the first statewide green building code in the nation.
“With this first-in-the nation mandatory green building standards code, California continues to pave the way in energy efficiency and environmental protection. Today’s action lays the foundation for the move to greener buildings constructed with environmentally advanced building practices that decrease waste, reduce energy use and conserve resources,” said Governor Schwarzenegger.
Buildings in California account for one-quarter of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions. The California Air Resources Board estimates that CALGREEN will avoid 3 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent in 2020. It will also reduce water use by 20% and divert 50% of construction waste to landfills.
Rising CO2 emissions in the atmosphere due to the burning of fossil fuels is causing ocean acidification. Ocean dwelling organisms, many of which we eat and depend on, will be negatively affected because forming carbonate (i.e. shells) will become much more difficult. A new study from the north Pacific provides evidence that the oceans are becoming more acidic on a large scale.
Graph showing the increase in both atmospheric and dissoved ocean CO2, and decrease of ocean pH (increase in acidity). Source: Doney et al.
The results of a 15-year long study in the north Pacific Ocean provides evidence that the planet’s oceans are becoming more acidic due to increasing CO2 emissions in the atmosphere. The study, just published in Geophysical Research Letters, compared the pH of seawater samples taken along a transect between Oahu, Hawaii and Kodiak, Alaska on two expeditions in 1991 and 2006. The results show that average pH has decreased by 0.023 in the top 800 m of the ocean. While that may not sound like a lot, this decrease in pH corresponds to a roughly 6% increase in ocean acidity.
An increase in the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere increases the partial pressure of CO2, causing an imbalance between the dissolved CO2 in the oceans and the atmosphere. The oceans consequently absorb CO2, which creates carbonic acid in the water. In other words, by burning lots of stuff (coal, gas, wood) here on land, we are changing the chemistry of the earth’s oceans.
Interested in understanding more about what climate solutions are out there? Need a quick primer on Cap-and-Trade? This short video from Clean Energy Works offers an overview of some of the major goals and objectives associated with the legislation. Passing energy and climate legislation is essential if there is going to be any sort of comprehensive international agreement to address global warming and climate change.
Is cap-and-trade our best option? (See arguments for cap-and-trade vs. a carbon tax.) Proponents of the approach make the case that it leverages market based mechanisms to curtail emissions, and is more effective in limiting emissions to a specific threshold than a flat carbon tax, which is even more politically unpopular. However, in a recent op-ed to the NY Times, James Hansen, the famous climatologist, argues against it, while Paul Krugman, the Nobel laureate in economics, defends cap-and-trade in a response on his blog. For an in-depth review, see this 2009 assessment of U.S. cap-and-trade proposals by researchers at MIT. For a very brief overview of some of the pros and cons, see below. Continue reading Climate Solutions: The Story of Cap-and-Trade
The following short video from worldfocus was published in February, 2009, but is as relevant today as ever. Prioritizing ecological restoration and supporting environmentally sound infrastructure and development projects will be critical if the country’s long term recovery efforts are to reduce vulnerability to natural disasters such as the earthquake on January 12, 2009, or the hurricanes and tropical storms of August-September 2008.
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