Voluntary Climate Action

Copenhagen's a bust, so what next?

2009-11-16T10:32:00.000-08:00

I'm disappointed that the U.S. congress and other nations can't get their act together for a binding agreement on climate change and am looking toward a relatively simple solution and effective solution. I believe that the U.S. needs to take the lead on this politically sensitive issue because I don't think that we're going to reach an agreement with such a wide disparity in thinking between developing and developed nations. Furthermore, we need to come up with legislation that can get through congress, here at home. Here's a thought:

I like the idea of a consumer fuel tax and tax redistribution at the end of the year (so everyone receives a check at the year's end equal to the total tax divided by the number of citizens). Thus, it makes it a financial game...if you use less fuel than the average american, you make money on the year. Personally, I wouldn't mind making money by conserving and I think others would find themselves finding ways to be more efficient in their personal use of fuel in the face of higher actual prices. It might also make it politically more feasible because it's really a redistribution, not a tax, whereby those consuming less actually profit at the expense of heavy consumers. The trouble is that if we were to include commercial fuel in the equation, American products would be at a competitive disadvantage until a global carbon accounting system exists (this is far away, I think). One option is to tax imports from other countries who don't have such a tax-redistribution system (thereby encouraging them to adopt something similar--bullying in a good way). Without including the commercial market in the tax-redistribution system, a price differential between commercial fuel and consumer fuel would likely create a black market, so I would stay away from this option. I'm not a policy person, so this is just a thought. I'd be interested to hear reactions/suggestions.

FOSEP Energy Policy Forum

2008-10-29T21:08:00.000-07:00

In case you missed it, embedded here is streaming video from the US Energy Policy Public Forum presented by the UW graduate student group FOSEP.

Transportation Concept

2008-05-19T08:36:00.000-07:00

The following is my proposal for a regional transportation network that I believe will most effectively accommodate the needs of King County and Washington State, while drastically reducing its emissions.

Premises:
1) There has already been tremendous sprawl of developments in the region and I
2) People prefer autonomy (i.e. personal vehicles if given a choice). Personal vehicles permit people to travel where they want, when they want, while affording a modicum of privacy.
3) 52% of WA state fossil fuel emissions are due to vehicle due to vehicle transportation (Emissions Pie).
4) This corresponding cost of the imported fossil fuels represents a significant drain on the economy.
5) King county’s work force spends long and stressful hours in the car in heavy commuter traffic (often alone). This probably makes people less effective workers and less satisfied individuals.

Proposal:
Modify the existing road network to accommodate two forms of transportation.

Commuter only network (CVN):
a) Designed for small, lightweight, 1-2 person vehicles not much larger than the passengers themselves, with just enough room for some groceries in back.
b) The vehicles would have a fixed bumper height which would be matched by a guard-rail with a bumper at the same height. This comparable size of all vehicles in this network, combined with the bumper safety features would virtually eliminate mortality and serious injury for commuter riders.
c) The size of the vehicles would enable them to be extremely economical and ideally run on batteries which could power the vehicle for hours the duration of even the longest commutes.
d) Alert automobile manufacturers (or better yet, local Seattle firms) to the existence of a market for these small vehicles in 2015 when the network is slated to open.
e) This network would comprise approximately half of the pre-existing arterial streets and freeways.
Ex. 1: One direction of I-90 would be split in two with the existing 4 lanes split into six or eight (half for inbound, half for outbound), since the commuter vehicles (CV’s) would require less space.
Ex. 2: The same would be true for I-5 except the rush hour lane provides a natural break, enabling 2/3 of I-5 to be devoted to commuter traffic.
Ex. 3. Arterial streets are every 5 blocks in Seattle. Make every other arterial street into a commuter route.

Large vehicle network (LVN):
a) Designed to accommodate the class of vehicles currently existing on today’s infrastructure. The primary purpose of this network would be for the transport of freight (food, materials, etc), but passenger vehicles could be used as well.
b) Passenger vehicles would be discouraged from routine use of this network due to a high tax on gasoline and decreased parking availability for this class of vehicles, making reducing strain on the reduced size of the network.
c) Commercial vehicles would receive a full rebate on the gas tax so that business would proceed smoothly and prices would not rise much due to the tax.

Residential Streets:
a) CV’s and LV’s would co-exist.
b) Traffic slowing devices would keep vehicles from traveling rapidly and make it relatively safe for all forms of transportation.
c) Continue to devlop mass transit (i.e. trains), focusing on high-density areas and travel to regional areas of interest and areas where weather conditions would make access difficult via CV (such as the mountain passes…you can tell my bias).

Food for Thought:
1) Is a top down or a bottom up approach more effective in this case? First, let me describe the bottom-up approach: as gasoline prices increase, people drive more economical vehicles, achieving the same result without a change in the road system infrastructure. Two things prevent this change from occurring as rapidly as the supply (i.e. gasoline price) dictates. One is that people have already invested in large vehicles and it will be some time before the cost of gasoline drives them to believe it is economically wise to consider a new investment. Secondly (and perhaps more importantly), the size of vehicles will also lag consumer preference in a “perfectly safe” world because of the inherent risk of having large vehicles co-existing with small vehicles at high speed. Thus, the road network will have little relief in stress over the next few decades and the increasing population will more than cancel any relief in stress due to size of vehicles. Thus, I foresee a worsening problem unless gas taxes are incredibly high, but then poor families are the ones that really get hurt, The top down approach should be an automobile that more people can afford and it will cost people less during use because electricity will be cheaper than gasoline in the NW due to our hydro supply. A secondary LV would be considered a luxury item and vehicle-sharing companies such as Zipcar would make available to those who chose to own only a CV.
2) Narrowing of Seattle streets. CV routes could be far narrower, permitting more green space or walking/biking space. Residential strets could also be narrower because of the higher percentage of CV's on these roads.
3) Freeway Entrances. The alternation of arterial routes with CV’s and LV’s would separate the entry points for freeways. Some additional infrastructure would be necessary and the cost (including disruption) would need to be ascertained.
4) Sticking points for my plan:
a) Initial Investment. Road designation, freeway entrances, new bureaucratic systems, and education of the populace would require initial investment.
b) Equity. Would the designation of arterial tracts as “CVN” or “LVN” affect the commerce and create issues of fairness? Further study may be needed.
c) Network Boundaries. Initially (at least) there will be an outer boundary for this network, outside of which gas taxes probably wouldn’t be as high. It would be necessary to make sure that the incentive to drive CV’s isn’t undermined by people driving outside of the network to purchase gasoline. Are there other incentive programs that might be more effective. I don’t like the idea of tolls because they slow down commuting or make it difficult to coordinate with network users from a different region.
d) Convincing the Public. If I can't convince this audience, then it certainly won't fly in an audience less accepting of radical change.
5) Untapped Potential: The larger vision is that other regions (most of which face equally severe transportation/energy challenges) would adopt similar plans and create a national CVN. It must start somewhere and I see know better place for it than Washington State/King County.

For now, I’d be very interested to hear thoughts regarding this proposal, both positive and negative. Thanks for your interest!

Robert

2008-05-01T08:38:00.000-07:00

Have we underestimated the solar power potential?

After an interesting discussion at lunch yesterday, I did a quick calculation:

Power consumption in the US is about P=3.3 TW in 2005 (source DoE)

Given an efficiency E of solar collectors, and assuming a mean of F=300 W/m2 insolation at the top of the atmosphere (pretty good for mean annual insolation 45 N latitude), an atmospheric transmittance of T, then the total solar irradiance converted to electrical power is

I_converted = E*F*T

Thus the area of solar panels required to generate P, assuming E=10% (a low estimate) and T=0.8

A = P/I_converted = 3.3x10¹²/(E*F*T) = 1.4x10¹¹ m²

This is a square 220 miles on a side.

It would appear to me that solar power is clearly viable.

Next, we can Another way to look at it is to ask how much of an area would be required per person (assuming E=0.1). For 300 million people, this comes out to be:

1.4x10¹¹ m² / 300x10⁶ = 470 m², 21x21 m.

We can compare this requirement with how much land is dedicated to farming. Each person consumes about 100 kg of grain per year. A hectare of land (10,000 m²) produces about 7000 kg of grain with today's fertilizer yields. Thus, each person needs an area of 140 m² for wheat production, but wheat-for-human food is a small part of the total farming requirement per person, because only 30% is used for food, and the rest is used for animal feed and fuels. Corn farming comes to a whopping 1200 m² per person in the US (source USDA). So the total farming requirement per person is likely to exceed 1800 m² or an area of approximately 4-5 times that we would need for solar power (even with today's low-efficiency solar collectors).

I admit that storage issues are still a problem, but I think the real problem is one of willpower.

Regards

Rob

Have we underestimated the challenge?

2008-04-06T19:42:00.000-07:00

As a scientist, it's often easy to fall into the trap of thinking about climate change in a purely theoretical manner. We study the climate system so intensely that its dynamics and physics can obscure the practical and prescriptive challenges that accompany dangerous anthropogenic influence. If you stop to think about the sorts of changes that would result in a lessening of the radiative forcing attributed to human activity, you quickly realize that they're radical.

Where is that change going to come from? Political will? Market devices? The limits of our resources? And furthermore, how much change will be realized in the next ten to fifteen years? The standard response to these questions invokes political and economic forces as the sole motivator of institutional and individual change.

Until we have a better handle on climate sensitivity or a longer observational record, policy makers will continue look to the projections derived from the special report on emission scenarios (SRES) to construct international agreements. If those scenarios are off-base, the IPCC may severely err in presenting policy makers with a depiction of the warming associated with the various mitigation avenues available to them.

In this week's edition of Nature, a commentary paper by climate policy expert Roger Pielke Jr., climatologist Tom Wigley, and economist Christopher Green asserts that the IPCC has done just that, underestimate the challenge of stabilizing emissions this century.

The essay's argument relies on the authors' criticism of the spontaneous (without the help of policy measures) energy efficiency improvements built into the IPCC reference scenarios. This spontaneous improvement varies from scenario to scenario, from two-thirds of the total reduction and up. They also bring in data showing that current improvements in energy efficiency are already far below the values used in the SRES (the growth of China and India's economies contribute heavily to the global average). Implicit in their conclusions is the idea that future policy should focus on motivating technological change rather than emission caps. The Christian Science Monitor picked up on this question, but it is probably a false dichotomy. The agreements negotiated by the UNFCCC treat a variety of issues: caps, clean development incentives, and conservation measures among them.

As with most of their leading stories, Nature News has a variety of online material to supplement the paper. The Climate Feedback blog gives a nice overview of the practical argument of the paper, as well as some context. There's also a compilation of reactions from other experts and stakeholders.

I get the feeling this is an academic red herring of sorts. They've certainly stirred things up, but I hardly imagine that the IPCC is resting on its laurels with respect to the SRES. Regardless, the amount of uncertainty associated with the scenarios is bound to be large. After all, Jerome Namias pointed out that the challenge of predicting weather and climate is second to human behavior. We may run out of cheap fossil-based resources (though not likely...with all the coal and oil shale lying around), making the current SRES an overestimate.

It's particularly hard to cut through to the essential questions and decisions regarding climate change. Red herrings, false dichotomies, and fallacious arguments are littered throughout the landscape of present conversation over global warming. They serve mostly to distract, rarely and ineffectively raising the level of discourse.

That brings the circle round to scientists, policy makers, and their ability to respectively produce and react to assessments of the state of the climate system and our understanding of it. If there are aspects of the process and product that are lacking, they must be addressed, but to assert that the methodology is fundamentally flawed goes against years of experience and history. As Susan Solomon and Martin Manning put it in their recent Science editorial:

"Reformulating the science/policy interface should be considered and be open to change but must acknowledge lessons from the past. The factors that have been critical to the success of the IPCC need to be preserve if a rigorous scientific basis is to continue to inform the growing challenge of decision-making on climate change."

It's the trees, silly.

2008-03-07T07:25:00.000-08:00

And you thought the Clean Development Mechanism was contentious...

Near the conclusion of his article in The New Yorker (see my last post), Michael Specter discussed the importance of deforestation in the context of global carbon emissions.

Some discussion was generated, leaving a few of us wondering what can be done for the world's forests. Indeed, concern for the Earth's tropical forests seems to be in the ascendancy. A few weeks ago, Nature News gave some further insights into the mechanisms and strategies policymakers have devised to increase conservation. I'll leave my comments at that for now. Surely we'll be hearing more about the role of forests as the UNFCCC moves towards its 2009 Copenhagen accords.

On the metaphysics of a footprint

2008-02-24T09:04:00.000-08:00

In this week's edition of The New Yorker, reporter at large Michael Specter writes thoroughly about the nuances of carbon footprints. Through stories of nascent action by corporations, economics as well as food, Specter both confirms and challenges our intuitions about a low carbon world. It's certainly worth a read. I've shared a short excerpt below. You can find the full piece here.

The environmental burden imposed by importing apples from New Zealand to Northern Europe or New York can be lower than if the apples were raised fifty miles away. "In New Zealand, they have more sunshine than in the U.K., which helps productivity," Williams explained. That means the yield of New Zealand apples far exceeds the yield of those grown in northern climates, so the energy required for farmers to grow the crop is correspondingly lower. It also helps that the electricity in New Zealand is mostly generated by renewable sources, none of which emit large amounts of CO2. Researchers at Lincoln University, in Christchurch, found that lamb raised in New Zealand and shipped eleven thousand miles by boat to England produced six hundred and eighty-eight kilograms of carbon-dioxide emissions per ton, about a fourth the amount produced by British lamb. In part, that is because pastures in New Zealand need far less fertilizer than most grazing land in Britain (or in many parts of the United States). Similarly, importing beans from Uganda or Kenya--where the farms are small, tractor use is limited, and the fertilizer is almost always manure--tends to be more efficient than growing beans in Europe, with its reliance on energy-dependent irrigation systems.

China

2008-02-20T11:01:00.000-08:00

Lia and I had a wonderful opportunity to meet a group of honors students from Zhejiang University in China through the PCC outreach program. Subsequent interaction with one of these students provides valuable insight that I wish to share:

The environment problem is not prevented from reaching us. The only problem is, it’s not highly emphasized in the public. We can get access to all kinds of information easily. In news report, there’s something about global warming issue almost every day. I guess, it’s just the lack of awareness of how severe the problem is that stops people from taking the issue seriously and doing something to change the situation. Though we saw the issue, we don’t really FEEL the issue in China actually. Another important reason from my perspective is that, in China people tend to follow a ‘up-to-down’ behavior pattern. That is to say, if there’s a national policy or some national leader’s speech, ordinary citizens started to think about what they could do to follow the trend. We’re trying to create a ‘down-to-up’, grass-root like pattern these years. But it’s still just on its way. In China, it’ll be more efficient to convince the high level authority that they should begin to do something about this vital problem.

International interaction and collaboration represents an incredible opportunity in the climate sciences and I was encouraged to see students taking the issue to heart.

Robert

Ocean Acidification

2008-02-20T10:28:00.001-08:00

Dr. Feeley's presentation entitled 'Science on the Cutting Edge' during the Focus The Nation inspired me to brainstorm potential solutions for the ocean acidification problem. The "do nothing" or "stop emitting and do nothing else" approaches to the ocean will still result in environmental catastrophe and tremendous strain upon the 1 billion people worldwide who depend upon coral-dependent species worldwide (to mention just one of the problems). In the long-run, the dissolution of land-based limestone (CaCO3) helps balance the natural emission sources of carbon dioxide limestone reserves are also quite copious. Thus, the question is whether there is a way to help control acidification by "seeding" regions of the ocean. My research on the subject turned up this PPT presentation:

Mitigating the Atmospheric CO2 Increase and Ocean Acidification by Adding Limestone Powder to Upwelling Regions

Key points:
1) Adding limestone to upwelling regions will increase the pH of the ocean.
2) The effectiveness decreases with scale (reaching a limit).
3) More CO2 would be drawn down from the atmosphere.
4) Carbonate may be added on a small-scale more or less continuously.

Question for the chemical oceanographers: If you reach the limit in the second point, would the limestone "dust" just settle out? What are potential "unintended consequences to the local upwelling ecosystems?

I don't think that we can look for a single "solution" and the larger the scale of any potential experiment, the greater the potential consequences of failure. Thus, I like the idea of myriad small-scale solutions.

Following his lecture, Dr. Feeley mentioned that cement manufacturers are using a similar concept to neutralize the cement tailing by-product from cement manufactures by dissolving CO2 (emitted in the production process) and water (presumably used as a coolant). The cement manufacturing industry currently comprises 1.5% of the CO2 emissions nation-wide. This would greatly reduce two problems at once, if it were possible. I will post on this topic soon...

Robert

Idea Generator

2008-02-20T10:21:00.000-08:00

This is an interesting idea and potentially a good way to get your voice heard on any topic. In this particular case, the economy is the focus, but everything connects...I think science needs more voices in the media (whether it be directly related to science or not).

Idea Generator

Addendum to Bura Seminar

2008-01-10T13:40:00.000-08:00

At the conclusion of Thursday's seminar, Renata received a question about the government's commitment to biofuel production. I piped up inquiring if anyone knew anything about the Energy Bill recently passed by Congress (Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007).

I did some brief, research, and here's what I found:

"H.R. 6 would expand the renewable fuels standard to 9 billion gallons in 2008 (presently 4.7 in 2007) and progressively increase it to a 36 billion gallon requirement by 2022. Additionally, H.R. 6 makes a historic commitment to cellulosic ethanol by requiring that by 2022 the United States produce 21 billion gallons of advanced biofuels, such as cellulosic ethanol." (From the executive summary)
Starting in 2016, the increase in the renewable fuel standard must be met with what the government deems advanced biofuels, based on cellulosic/non corn starch feedstock derived ethanol. This is the historic commitment. But wait...
However, the EPA Administrator is given authority to temporarily waive part of the biofuels mandate, if it is determined that a significant renewable feedstock disruption or other market circumstance might occur. This loophole is wide, and seems to lessen the commitment by some degree. Nevertheless, a framework is in place.
Bura herself may be interested in this note..."Grants are authorized for R&D and commercial applications of cellulosic biofuels. The Secretary of Energy is required to report to Congress on the feasibility of algae as a feedstock for biofuels production." (From the CRS Summary).
Lastly, renewable fuels produced from new biorefineries will be required to reduce by at least 20% the life cycle greenhouse gases relative to life cycle emissions from gasoline and diesel. Based on what Renata had to say, it seems that this goal is feasible.

I would direct anyone looking for more information to the following report:

Selected Issues Related to an Expansion of the Renewable Fuel Standard

F.T.C. inquires about offsets

2008-01-09T18:14:00.000-08:00

The nascent carbon offset industry in the United States is more popular than some might think. Last year, corporations and individuals purchased more than $54 million in carbon offsets. Popular, maybe. Organic pet food is a $50 million industry. Irrespective of their appeal, offsets represent an intrinsically different assignment of value, perhaps not seen since the war bonds of the 1940s.

For such a noble surrender of money, consumers would certainly hope that their dollars and cents produced the intended effect, in this case, keeping carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Who ensures that offset vendors are doing what they promise?

Wednesday, The New York Times reported on the first hearings on the world of carbon offsets by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The article is brief, but mentions efforts previously unbeknownst to me by companies such as Delta, Volkswagen, Dell, and Bank of America. I've always wondered about federal oversight of offsets and recently questioned their efficacy when I decided to postpone whether or not to purchase offsets for 2008.

The FTC is responsible for regulating advertising claims, protecting consumers by providing accountability. On January 8th, the agency hosted "eco in the market," a conference intended to start the ball rolling on revising environmental advertising standards and recommendations. You can view a series of webcasts archived after the event at the conference website.

The article lacks depth, but it seems that even the FTC isn't sure what to make of offsets. With so many individuals and even corporations jumping on board, it appears appropriate that the government is analyzing the burgeoning industry for best practices and signs of fraud.

Have an opinion or concern about carbon offsets? You can submit comments to the FTC yourself, simply by visiting their website.

Climate Action

2007-12-10T20:13:00.000-08:00

Al Gore's Nobel Prize acceptance speech brings poetry and passion to the climate cause. This is worth a read, particularly for those who are in need of renewed inspiration. The metaphors do add to the speech; and, although somewhat lacking in style, Gore translated Antonio Machado better than the Google. Here's the search engine's translation of "Caminante":

Caminante, are your footprints
el camino, y nada más; The road, and nothing else;
caminante, no hay camino, Walker, no way,
se hace camino al andar. It is way to go.
Al andar se hace camino, When walking becomes way,
y al volver la vista atrás And looking back
se ve la senda que nunca Is the road than ever
se ha de pisar. It has to tread.
Caminante, no hay camino, Caminante, no way,
sino estelas en la mar. But trails in the sea.

For the linguists among us, perhaps the subltle reason that Gore included an excerpt from Caminante will be evident to you as it is for me. Enough preamble...

http://blog.algore.com/2007/12/nobel_prize_acceptance_speech.html

Signup Walkthrough Posted

2007-12-08T13:19:00.000-08:00

All,

I've posted a short walkthrough for those interested in becoming VCA blog contributors. You may find it under the 'links' header in the sidebar or by following the link at the end of this post.

It serves to bring new contributors who are not familiar with blogger, blogging, google...up to speed. So, if you know of individuals interested in posting, let a blog administrator know and point them toward the walkthrough. Thanks.

Who should we elect?

2007-12-07T15:51:00.001-08:00

At the heart of this climate blog is the earnest attempt to answer the question, "what can we do?" Because of the overwhelming power and influence they wield, one of the most important things we can do is elect to public office effective candidates whose priorities are in line with our own. Unsurprisingly, determining what candidates actually stand for and surmising how effective they'll be once in office can be more than a bit challenging. In an attempt to assist in that process, I'd like to bring to your attention what I found to be a relevant and enlightening analysis of the top three Democratic presidential candidates. While not bulletproof, there are some excellent insights that make this an essential read.

http://www.skirsch.com/politics/president/comparison.htm

Below are a few words about the author of that analysis.

http://www.theledger.com/article/20071203/ZNYT01/712030483/-1/USNEWS

Hafen

Personal Carbon Emissions Inventory

2007-12-01T09:10:00.000-08:00

Using a variety of different resources it is fairly straightforward to estimate your own personal CO2 emission inventory due to transportation and home use. Doing this made me realize just how much air travel can contribute. I also attempted (albeit crudely because of lack of information) to estimate the energy use of the different activities, which is interesting when placed in the context of the 2000 Watt society.

For air travel I used Terrapass. While not recommended for their carbon offsets purchasing program, they do have a more user-friendly air-travel emissions calculator.

For home use I used my electricity bill and EPA's personal emissions calculator, which is comprehensive.

The results are available on a MyEmissions Twiki Page

I am aware now that I am omitting a number of important emissions, namely those due to the manufacture of goods and food that I buy, and those from my workplace (think about 7 floors of corridor lighting burning bright at night and at weekends!). I would appreciate any guidance as to how we might calculate some of these emissions.

Department of Atmospheric Sciences members can edit the Twiki page and add their own emissions.

Regards

Rob

Videoconferencing at the UW

2007-11-30T11:29:00.000-08:00

At our informal faculty lunch this week, a few of us discussed meeting travel and some ideas on how to reduce it. Not surprisingly, one of the ideas was video conferencing. I did a little web surfing and found a recent article in Science that discusses the subject (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/318/5847/36). (I usually read Science but somehow missed this article the first time around!) It’s worth a quick scan. If you have trouble accessing it for any reason, send me an email and I will send you a PDF version that I saved.

Earlier this week, I ran across a reference to the Access Grid (http://www.accessgrid.org/), which is also mentioned in the Science article. The Access Grid is supported by Argonne National Laboratory and currently has 233 nodes in 29 countries (see map on their web site). There are 3 in the state of Washington located at PNNL, WSU, and the Chemistry Department at the UW. Nodes can be fairly simple (laptop plus camera) or pretty extensive (room with microphones, flat panel screens, etc.). I checked with the person who is listed as the Chemistry Department contact and their node is (was) a laptop plus camera that they wheeled around. Chemistry has essentially discontinued that in favor of using the Odegaard Videoconference Studio (http://catalyst.washington.edu/learning_spaces/video_conferencing.html), which can run the Access Grid software (as well as other software) and has trained staff to help out.

I am going to try to visit the Videoconference Studio to see what it is like and how available it is in terms of scheduling. I would like to encourage us to look for opportunities to use this facility and figure out how well it works for small meetings. (The web page says that it can handle up to 16 people.) It may be a way for us to participate in meetings without having to get on an airplane.

Carbon offsets

2007-11-26T11:11:00.000-08:00

Many of you may already know this but I just found out about it a couple of weeks ago. The Provost wants to create a new college, the College of the Environment. Our dept., ESS, Oceanography, and several other departments will likely be part of it. You can find a little bit more about it here: http://www.washington.edu/provost/coenv/index.html and also in the most recent Provost's Town Hall Meeting which you can watch here http://www.washington.edu/provost

The Provost wants to increase the awareness of all of the environmental research that is being conducted at the UW and grow the UW's leadership in this area. A statement from the above web page says: "We believe that this College will not only increase the University’s ability to conduct leading-edge research, but will facilitate proactive solution-driven work while simultaneously producing informed, environmentally conscious citizens and leaders."

This makes me wonder is the UW considering doing something similar to what those at ETH did? Does anyone know?

If you search the web for carbon offsets you'll find a lot. There are a number of companies selling them. The amount they charge varies widely for offsetting the same amount of carbon. There is no regulation of the companies in the US so who knows if they are really offsetting what you paid for. I think there is some regulation in countries that have signed the Kyoto protocol but I'm not sure. Also, places like ETH's myclimate.org only accept contibutions in swiss frans and euros which is currently suboptimal for those wanting to contribute in dollars and will likely continue to be for some time. It would great if UW had a web site to collect dollars from those wanting to offset their carbon emissions and have the students, faculty and staff actually do it and at the same time hopefully fund innovations into new and better ways of doing it.

I think UW already has a history of doing things like this, for example, this link says http://uwnews.org/uweek/uweekarticle.asp?articleID=22435 "the 15-year alliance between City Light and the UW has resulted in 350 conservation projects in 293 buildings, resulting in energy savings valued at $19 million." I don't know if UW on its own could offset everything contributors asked for and if they couldn't they need to turn enough money over to places such as myclimate.org to ensure its truly offsetted.

Hubbert's Peak, The Coal Question, and Climate Change

2007-11-21T18:39:00.000-08:00

Halstead wrote:
Nov. 20, 2007
Hi,

I've written earlier about distastefully arrogant CalTech profs.'Tis pleasant to report a good one, and a good talk yesterday by David Rutledge, the Chair of the division of engineering and applied science there. Despite a list of honors longer than my arm .. one that impressed me most, an annual award given to one person only, had been given also to six of his students .. Rutledge spoke modestly, convincingly, and well. His title: "Hubbert's Peak, The Coal Question, and Climate Change."

Hubbert, by the way, was a geophysicist at the Shell labs who in 1956 predicted finite oil reserves with a shorter horizon to exhaustion than had before been assumed. Hubbert's "Peak"
refers to the top of a Gaussian curve of production vs time.
Some speculation is now current that we're close to that peak, globally, for oil. Rutledge's talk was essentially an update and extension of Hubbert's arguments, including Coal.

Firstly, the material underlying this talk, including slides,
an Excel worksheet, and a video, are available on line at
http://rutledge.caltech.edu. This is better than any precis I may write, so I'll be brief:

Rutledge convinced me that it is probable that our oil and coal reserves are less than any of 40 scenarios considered by the most current IPCC document, and that peak global emissions of CO2 to the atmosphere will most likely occur near 2020, not 2050 or later, as has been assumed.

This assertion is dramatic, it will certainly shake up the
debate, add pressure for the development of alternative energy sources, and .. here's the 'good' news .. act to diminish the upper estimates of climate change. The worrisome news, in my opinion, is that it will support a premature push towards nuclear power. [I hold that we should do cheaper things first.]

Some tid-bits from the talk.

1) France has closed its last coal mine. Germany has only 9
mines presently operating, and plans to close two more in
2009 and 2010.

2) China has ~30,000 active coal mines [!], most small and
inefficient. It employs ~3,000,000 miners [!], most in
terrible conditions. [The US peak mine employment was
~300,000, in 1950. We're now at about 30,000.] The Tan-
Shan earthquake of 27 July, 1976, killed ~30,000 miners,
trapped underground. Pollution from burning coal presently
kills ~1,000,000 people a year in China.

3) The amount of coal removed from England and Wales is
equivalent to scraping 6" off the surface of both and
throwing the spoil into the Atlantic ocean. Coal mining
is not presently economical in Great Britain, but done
anyway, for complex reasons.

4) The US has larger coal reserves than China. Interestingly,much of these are in Montana, which has elected not to exploit them. Coal provides ~50% of current US electricity demand.

Do look at the web site. Do follow the debate that will
certainly follow this provocative study. And do think about
the consequences of a sooner but lesser maxima for ALL the
IPCC scenarios for CO2 emissions and climate change.

Solar Energy

2007-11-21T08:35:00.000-08:00

I'd also like to draw attention to solar technology which may be undergoing some revolutionary advances. Nanosolar will be unveiling its version of photovoltaic technology that claims to bring down the cost of production (the limiting factor at this point) to 60cents per watt, with a markup that probably would make it on a par (for cost with oil) in many energy sectors. Their products will be on the market next year and will be limited by production speed. Adoption of this technology in the U.S. may be slower due to bureaucracy, particularly related to the incorporation of PV technology in the electric grid.

The other question is how effective solar technology would be in Seattle. I believe that 30% efficiency of photon energy conversion is about the best we can expect from solar panels. With combined low sun angles and clouds in Seattle, how much of Seattle could be powered by roof-top solar? We should be able to put together a climatology of radiation from the atg. roof records.

Here are a few articles that I've found regarding Nanosolar:

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/flat/bown/2007/green/item_59.html

http://earth2tech.com/2007/07/30/10-questions-for-nanosolar-ceo-martin-roscheisen/

Another... Call for Action

2007-11-19T21:08:00.000-08:00

Greg et al,

Absolutely, a gas tax would be far more effective than this (as you say) pretentious and symbolic effort. But are you willing to draft the legislation or go lobby for it in Olympia? This is something that we can do. No, it's not perfect. But the point is that it's a public way of recognizing that our actions are affecting the planet, of attempting to quantify this impact, and of taking responsibility.

And yes, Chris, many of us already do what we can to reduce our impact, so why not do it publicly?

Our actions can take many forms, and this discussion is hopefully a useful way for us to get to the point of taking action. Who's in? I am.

Kim

More responses - here's what the UW is doing

2007-11-19T20:54:00.000-08:00

On Nov 19, 2007 10:25 AM, Marc <> wrote:

The UW decided on its own to purchase electricity that is from 100% renewable sources and has higher cost. See this
http://uwnews.org/uweek/uweekarticle.asp?articleID=22435
http://www.ci.seattle.wa.us/light/Green/greenPower/greenup.asp

Therefore it seems plausible the UW could on its own require that say carbon offsets be purchased if an airline provides them when a ticket is purchased. The cost would be spread over all the budgets that buy the tickets.

Short of that an individual faculty could buy the offsets themselves. The value of award travel from frequent flyer miles they receive from university paid trips exceeds the amount of the cost of the carbon offsets for those miles so technically they wouldn't be paying for it.

I think this is a good example to shame people into changing their habits. From
http://www.tufts.edu/tie/tci/carbonoffsets/TCI-offset-handout.htm
The average American is responsible for the emissions of about 20 tons of CO2 annually, the average European or Japanese for about half that. If you fly to Europe and back from the US, you’ll add about 3-4 tons to your (already large) carbon footprint. With one flight you will have
caused more emissions than 20 Bangladeshi will cause in a whole year. Unfortunately they are the ones who will lose their homes and livelihood once sea level rise inundates their low lying country.

I overheard a faculty once that said I need to get another trip in this year to make Premier status for next year. This does make one wonder how many trips are really necessary. It would be nice if some large conferences like AGU could be attended virtually. Some computer science
courses I took 10 years ago had 2-way video from UW to Microsoft in Redmond and Intel near Olympia so students didn't have to commute. It not perfect but its a shame more of this isn't being used.

Marc

More responses - here's how you can support changes in legislation

2007-11-19T20:53:00.001-08:00

On Nov 19, 2007 10:13 AM, Sarah <> wrote:
All,

It can be argued that the most powerful things to do is to support organizations that *can* help draft the needed legislation, etc.

In the past, I have "offset" my air travel with donations to groups like myclimate.org. More recently, I've taken to making donations instead to groups like Climate Solutions (http://www.climatesolutions.org/) who really are making things happen at the state/regional/national level.

Yes, we should all strive to minimize our personal carbon emissions. But ultimately the solution will need to come from changes in policy that can only come about by electing the right people and supporting those on the ground who are pushing the big-picture solutions forward.

My 2 cents~
Sarah

Trouble really begins - Call for Action 2 and responses...

2007-11-19T20:41:00.000-08:00

Here's a somewhat edited (for truth) version of the email thread from Kim...

For the record, I thought X said he'd draft an agreement. My bad.

Halstead and Rob Wood have some great comments about specifics (see previous post).
I would say that we need a task force to address these questions and
join in preparing a draft proposal. The TF should also put together a time
line, propose a flashy name for the effort, and consider spawning additional
tasks-forces to head up:
- a toolkit (co2 calculators, etc);
- a marketing strategy (ie ways to get the wider UW community involved); 
- things like bulletin boards and a website (walls of fame/shame) to keep track of emissions
and promises and to generally hold people accountable.

To address one query, the agreement could certainly have a clause about offsetting
your travel emissions. (Despite not owning a car, my personal and work trips are
killer in this category.) There are many ways this could happen, and I'd like to
hear everyone's suggestions. For those who cannot afford the $50 or more per flight,
perhaps they could volunteer with the Washington Trails Association
(http://wta.org/), EarthCorps (http://www.earthcorps.org), and the like.

These are my ideas and the thoughts of a few others below. Feel free to add your own.

Cheers,
Kim

On Nov 18, 2007 10:01 PM, Greg <> wrote:

Kim et al.,

I'm all for it, but in a tax-averse state like WA, where will the
revenue come from (presumably this policy would cover all state
employees)? I don't see how this can come out of the UW operating budget.

Actually, I would rather see something like a $5 per gallon tax on
gasoline. Although that wouldn't have all the symbolism and pretension
of "covering our carbon footprint," it would limit consumption and force
alternatives. If Olympia buys carbon offsets and our behavior doesn't
change, what's the point?

G

On Nov 18, 2007 11:06 PM, Chris <> wrote:

Dear Kim,

I already work really hard to minimize professional travel, which
is even so the biggest part of my greenhouse footprint. What I will do
is email my NSF program manager to see what it would take to
add greenhouse offsets for a professional trip as an allowable expense
to the grant (ultimately hopefully mandatory, but start small). Perhaps
the incentive is better if we pay personally, but the ethics aren't
correct (we often have little choice about going to meetings, and it is
funding groups that organize them and make PIs attend that really need
to rein themselves in).

Chris

Trouble begins - Call for Action 1 and responses...

2007-11-19T20:35:00.000-08:00

Dear X:

So would you be willing to draft and sign a voluntary agreement to reduce
your personal and professional carbon footprint? The agreement could be to
reduce your footprint by X% a year, or to get it below a target amount.

If we the scientists aren't willing to stand up and do something about
global warming, why should the rest of the public? It seems fitting that
the faculty, staff and students in the atmospheric, earth, space and ocean
sciences lead the way for UW and beyond.

...says the alum. I'll sign too, and I'll take it to the wind industry in
Seattle.

Kim


Some responses:

From Rob ------------------------------------------------------

Some thoughts about details:

Can we offset these emissions with carbon credits?

Is it a reduction we are looking for, or just a commitment to emit less

than a certain amount?

Would it include UW travel (in which case, with my 50,000 miles last

year, I'd be in trouble)?

It should certainly include personal travel. I was feeling quite good

about not having a car, but that's almost completely offset by my one
personal trip to the UK (or to Mexico) per year. I now need to do
something more.

Just asking everyone to calculate their emissions would be a good start.

The online calculators are enlightening.

Regards

Rob

From Halstead ------------------------------------------------------

On Nov 18, 2007 4:06 PM, Halstead <>
wrote:

On Sun, 18 Nov 2007, kcomstock wrote:

So would you be willing to draft and sign a voluntary
agreement to reduce your personal and professional carbon
footprint? The agreement could be to reduce your footprint by
X% a year, or to get it below a target amount.

So. Let's talk about this, with explicit formulae
and better numbers. The devil's in the details.

1) My personal carbon footprint shall be calculated
how?

2) Offset costs would be what? Shall these be
computed on the gross, or on the net above average?

3) Personal, or family? Any age adjustment?

4) Can we sign conditionally upon some specified
percent of others signing too?

5) Anything I've forgotten?

Cheers,
Halstead

Responses to the Impetus

2007-11-19T20:32:00.001-08:00

On Nov 17, 2007 12:43 PM, Robert <> wrote:
Dear Marcia,

Thanks very much for the information about the carbon compensation at
ETH, and for the links. I looked a little bit online at the
organizations recommended by the Tufts study, and was quite stunned by
what these show. Others may be well aware of this already, but I wasn't:

1. One economy return flight to DC is equivalent in carbon emissions to
driving a mid-sized car 100 miles per week for a year.

2. The true cost of compensating these emissions is of the order $50-100
depending upon the exact details of how the money is spent.

Given how much many of us are expected to travel in our professional
capacities it would make sense for a progressive institution like the
University of Washington to do something about contributing to this
compensation. I wonder if these emissions are being considered in the
UW's plans to reduce their carbon footprint. I couldn't find anything
definitive about this on the UW website.

Regards

Rob

______________________________________________________________

On Nov 17, 2007 2:12 PM, Justin <> wrote:
Rob:

Thanks for highlighting the most key points. These numbers gel very
closely with some back of the envelope calculations I did myself several
years ago with respect to air travel. I found that as a VERY rough rule
of thumb, the fuel use per person for air travel on a fair full typical
jet used for domestic travel (e.g. a 737) is approximately equal to the
fuel use of driving the same distance by yourself in a car that gets 30
mpg. The range of deviation across different size planes etc, passenger
loads etc is probably about that of the range across the current
spectrum of passenger cars.

Justin

___________________________________________________

On Nov 17, 2007 2:23 PM, Halstead <> wrote:

After awhile, cyclists' minds turn to trivia: estimating your
speed in parsecs/millenia, for example. I never checked it in
the sobriety of leisure, but remember one exercise that
convinced me that the cost of sugar to propel me a mile was
comparable to the cost of gasoline to propel my car that
same mile. Now, I wonder, how much I should charge for the
carbon emission. I'll work on it, next trip to the U.

Cheers,
Halstead

___________________________________________________

On Nov 18, 2007 4:26 AM, Chris <> wrote:
Dear Justin,

It's not quite so bad with modern jets, more like 60-80 person-miles
per gallon flying full (or putting two people in that economy car)
according to a Wikipedia fuel efficiency article and a web site from the
Air Transport Action Group. At least, airlines are improving the fuel
economy of planes while tightened CAFE standards for cars and light
trucks languish in Washington.

Chris

___________________________________________________

etc

Impetus: Message from Marcia

2007-11-19T20:29:00.000-08:00

Starting from the beginning - a message was sent from Marcia to all_users on Nov 14.

Marcia wrote:
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

>
> To All
> I have just returned from ETH, Zurich, where they have initiated two
> programs some of you may be interested in:
>
> 1. They 'compensate' all Carbon and aerosol emissions related to
> professional travel,
> using calculations by the organization MyClimate (see below).
> MyClimate was initiated and developed by graduate students at ETH and
> is one of four similar organizations receiving top grades in a recent
> Tufts University study. Lufthansa and Swiss Air routinely ask if you
> want to pay the extra bit to pay for the compensations.
> ETH pays the fees for all professional travel by its employees.
>
> To contact MyClimate: kathrin.dellantonio@myclimate.org or just go to
> http://www.myclimate.org.
>
> Maybe future conferences here could encourage voluntary participation
> in such a program.
>
> 2. A group at ETH developed the idea of the '2000 Watt' society
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Watt_society)
> which seems like an interesting benchmark to include in public
> presentations. (The hard part is converting the 'therms' from our
> energy bills to Watts.)
>
> Marcia