Problematic solutions

You know how I was bragging in a previous post about how we changed most of our light bulbs to compact fluorescents? Well, the other day we got exposed to the dark side of CFLs: mercury. These highly efficient bulbs have a tiny amount of mercury vapor inside them, which releases when they break. Bummer.

CFLs aren't the only climate solution with a dark side. Hell, even "walking" got accused of releasing more CO2 than driving in a recent Times article (if you eat only industrially-farmed beef.) (Major aside: I'd like to see the carbon footprint of the health care impact of obesity. Though, maybe, if you really wanted to be cynical about it, you'd count all those shortened lives as a carbon credit - yuck!!! Oh yeah, and I'd imagine most people would eat the same amount of calories whether or not they walk - just in one case they burn them, and in the other case they get fat. I prefer to walk).

Biofuels are currently the poster child for problematic climate solutions. They are increasingly controversial - accused of starving the poor, polluting land and water, using more energy than they contain to produce them, etc. Two recent articles in Science (Searching et al, 2008; Fargione et al 2008) studied the land-use impacts of biofuels and concluded that, unless the fuel feedstock will store and sequester more carbon than the current land use, clearing land to grow biofuels will incur a carbon deficit that will take years to pay back through displaced fossil fuels. Even if no land is cleared, but agricultural land is used for fuel production, this will (according to Searchinger et al) displace food production, leading to indirect emissions as land is cleared elsewhere to grow food. Another article (Righelato & Spracklen, 2007) concludes that much more carbon could be sequestered by converting land to forest than using it to grow feedstocks for biofuels.

So, yeah, trees store and sequester a lot of carbon. Are they the solution? Well, trees can release methane, another greenhouse gas (Keppler et al, 2006), and planting trees in higher latitudes can reduce albedo, which causes the Earth to absorb more heat. More problematic than these caveats is the fact that, in order to get people to start growing trees (and stop cutting them down), we're going to have to value the carbon they sequester. But according to Sinks Watch, paying people to plant trees justifies burning fossil fuels, won't sequester carbon permanently, and tree-planting projects can violate indigenous land rights and encourage sterile monocrops. Depressed yet? I am!

It seems the only "solution" without a dark side (except for perhaps damaging our growth-dependent economy - to be addressed in a future post) is less - less flying, less driving, less consuming, less throwing away... But this solution is problematic for other reasons: 1) it's difficult to change people's behavior, and 2) it's politically unpalatable, so politicians won't touch it.

Boy are we in a pickle!!!

Only we're not, really. All of the solutions discussed above (except obesity!!) are real solutions. They are just not THE solution. To repeat the cliche: "there is no silver bullet." Think of this as analogous to medicine. When you're sick, and you go to the doctor, she doesn't tell you to pour your penicillin on your breakfast cereal every morning. She doesn't tell you to gouge your heart with the thermometer in order to take your temperature. She tells you to lay off a bit, take care of your body, be sure to take your medicine with food and only twice a day. Oh, and eat your local green beens and drink your local milk. Eat some protein, but not all day long every day.

Likewise with climate medicine:

Compact fluorescents actually reduce the amount of mercury in the environment because they require less electricity and therefore reduce emissions from coal-fire power plants. I'm going to be careful with them (especially when they break) and be sure to dispose of them properly, but I'm not going to stop using them.

Likewise, I still believe biofuels have a role to play. I could go on and on about this (and I did, in my thesis and comprehensive exams), but there are many cases where biofuels can be made from waste or made in a way that makes sense with existing farming practices (ie, canola is a great rotation crop with potatoes, killing potato fungi - growing canola for biofuels can reduce the need for chemicals, and help potato farmers stay in business, protecting farmland from suburbanization). But I don't believe we can replace all or even a quarter of our petroleum needs with biofuels (at least with current technology) without serious negative consequences. Biofuels should be a niche solution, used where they make sense, to the extent they make sense.

I like trees, too (well, duh - I'm a tree hugger). And I think they have a pretty big role to play in all of this. But policies and carbon markets have to be designed to maximize co-benefits and minimize unintended consequences.

Oh, yeah, and using less? I think that's a great idea. It's going to be hard, but we do need to change our behavior, and I believe we can. Likewise, I think we can convince our leaders to help us. This solution is going to take social capital - it will take a community movement (as discussed in the "sharing the load" post). But it is possible.

Oh, and I'm still going to walk to school. I just won't power myself on a pure beef diet (why would I want to, anyway?). The beef I do eat will be locally-grown, largely grass-fed and delicious!

forgetting

The purpose of this blog is to document the emotional/spiritual/intellectual impact of climate change. To, as I said in my first post, answer the question, "what were they thinking?" I am trying to answer that question truthfully. And the truth is, right now, not much. Yeah, I'm not thinking much about climate change, or really anything, for that matter. I just finished my thesis, defense and comprehensive exams. My brain is on a much-needed vacation. I made delicious local cranberry pancakes for breakfast, and it's toasty in my apartment (well, I have a blanket over my knees and a hat on, so I'm cozy), and I'm watching the snow fall outside - big fat, lazy, swirling flakes. I'm struggling to make myself do my homework and grade. Actually, I'm struggling to make myself do anything other than stare blankly out the window. One of my assignments was to read an article by Andy Revkin on science writing and the challenge of talking about climate change in the mainstream media. Even that couldn't penetrate my blissful bubble. So, here I am documenting the forgetting. It's nice to do every once in a while. I think I'll go make myself a cup of tea...

Sharing the load

Part of recognizing and appreciating my connection with a greater whole - both humanity and nature - means accepting the fact that I can't do it all. It's going to take all of us. Well, some folks aren't pulling their weight right now (ahem, U.S. federal government! - not to name names or anything), but that doesn't mean I have to make myself miserable trying to overcompensate.

I'm doing what I can right now, but I need others to help me. We need others to try to reduce their carbon footprint. We need others to call their congressmen. We need a community movement - not just a few borderline burnt-out grad students trying to fight the tide. I need to know I'm not alone.

In my public involvement class, we've been reading Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone, which documents the staggering decline in social capital (community organizations, schmoozing, bridge clubs, dinner parties, political organizations, etc.) over the last fifty or so years. We recently read Putnam's chapter on generational change, in which he lambastes Generation X: "In both personal and national terms, this generation is shaped by uncertainty..., insecurity,.. and an absence of collective success stories - no victorious D-Day and triumph over Hitler, no exhilarating, liberating marches on Washington and triumph over racism and war, indeed hardly any "great collective events" at all." Ouch.

At the final rally for Focus the Nation, one of the undergrads got up to "speak out." He talked about how his has been called the "quiet generation." "That's great," he said. "I just can't wait to tell my kids how we were the 'quiet generation.' How we started community movements through Myspace and Face Book." Ouch.

And here I am, staring at a computer screen, writing about my personal, individual feelings about climate change, and how, I, as an individual, am burning myself out trying to do it all myself. As Bill McKibben says, "the only thing missing from this movement is the movement." Tackling climate change is not the type of thing we can expect to achieve from the quiet, lonely space of our desktop computers, or worse, television. What we need is a "great collective event" - now is our chance, Gen X-ers! But it's going to take social capital. It's going to take organizing, talking, networking, delegating, socializing, demonstrating...

So, in the wise words of Macy Gray:

"Get up get out and do something
Don't let the days of your life pass you by
You got to get up get up and do something
How will you make it if you never even try?
Get up get out and do something
Can't spend your whole life trying to get high
You got to get up get out and do something
'cause you and I got to do for you and I"

Hee, hee! :)

Heh, heh, heh - check out this New York Times article on the recent climate skeptics meeting in NY.

What's my motivation?

I have thus far refrained from ranting about the destructive consequences of climate change - we get a lot of that from all directions... But I thought it would be interesting to try to articulate why I personally think this is such an important issue - not to convince others, but rather to understand it myself. So, here's the beginning of an attempt to articulate my motivation - a work in progress, perhaps:

• The consequences of climate change will be devastating for all life. I won't go into much detail here - see "The Weather Makers" by Tim Flannery for more information. This, in itself, is a reason, but it also feeds into deeper motivations, both as an individual and as a part of a greater whole:

• I want to protect myself and the things I love. I plan on having kids some day. I feel a responsibility to them to pass on this world as intact as possible, complete with biodiversity, clean drinking water, peace, and the opportunity to live a fulfilling life. It sounds trite, but this is a motivating factor. Sometimes I'm inclined to get cynical about the human race (both about civilization's future survival as well as whether we deserve to survive at all). But then I remember all the individuals in my life and how much I love them. Humans really are worth working for. So are all the places and species, the natural communities, the rocks, mountains, rivers and lakes that I experience and enjoy.
  
• I'm part of a greater whole. That statement is true on a spiritual, scientific and philosophical level - the fate of the Earth and the community of life impacts me on a spiritual, physical and intellectual level. I'm not just worried that 3 out of every 5 species are expected to go extinct by the end of the century under a business as usual scenario (Flannery, 2005) because I think polar bears are cute (though I do). It upsets me because I am intrinsically connected; the devastating loss of life and diversity devastates me because I am a part of all this. Likewise, even if I'm not one of the 200 million people displaced by rising seas (Stern Review, 2007), I am part of a global community, the wellbeing of which affects me.
  

• As a first world citizen from the world's greatest perpetrator - the US of A - I feel responsibility for the consequences of climate change. Likewise, I feel a responsibility to do what I can to stop it.
• Sometimes I think climate change presents an opportunity (?): a chance to rethink and reconstruct not only our relationship to the Earth but also our relationship with each other; a chance to rekindle the dwindling community spirit, a chance to revise our systems and institutions to make them more equitable; a chance to disrupt the power structure from the local to the regional to the global level.
  

I get really cynical sometimes. For example, I recently found out that emissions in the last several years have surpassed the IPCC's worst-case scenario (Raupach et al, 2007). Surprisingly, I suppose, a sense of hopelessness and inevitability does not decrease my drive. This is a moral quest, not an intellectual one (yes, I'm taking the word "moral" back from the Right). The passion that I feel cannot be easily diminished by poor odds. Just as I would do all I could for a loved one who only had a 1% chance of survival, so will I continue to fight.

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry