A Musing Environment

After I wrote my first paper on energy issues in 1997, a man from Scotland wrote saying that I might be too enthusiastic about wind. My attempt is to make what I say reflect the best understandings of the science and policy communities, but it is true that I was enthusiastic about wind. Over the years, some concerns have emerged, and I have put my enthusiasm on hold to see how analysis goes.

David Keith first raised the concern about climate change caused by wind power some years ago, but made no prediction about the direction that change might be, for good or ill. See Keith’s short overview on Wind Power and Climate Change, or download the longer National Academy of Science study. Now there is a more recent analysis: MIT analysis suggests wind turbines could cause temperatures to rise and fall:

In a paper published online Feb. 22 in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, [Chen] Wang [of the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences] and [Ron] Prinn ]TEPCO Professor of Atmospheric Science] suggest that using wind turbines to meet 10 percent of global energy demand in 2100 could cause temperatures to rise by one degree Celsius in the regions on land where the wind farms are installed, including a smaller increase in areas beyond those regions. Their analysis indicates the opposite result for wind turbines installed in water: a drop in temperatures by one degree Celsius over those regions.

Prinn cautioned against interpreting the study as an argument against wind power, urging that it be used to guide future research that explores the downsides of large-scale wind power before significant resources are invested to build vast wind farms. “We’re not pessimistic about wind,” he said. “We haven’t absolutely proven this effect, and we’d rather see that people do further research.”

warmer Earth? (pdf)

From Potential climatic impacts and reliability of very large-scale wind farms (pdf), The results do need to be checked, especially over the ocean:

Significant warming and cooling remote from the installations, and alterations of the global distributions of rainfall and clouds also occur.

Our ocean results indicating cooling over the installation regions and warming and cooling elsewhere are interesting, but suspect due to the unrealistic increases in surface drag needed to extract the target wind power.

10% of the world’s energy supply is a lot of energy, but the effects may not be so dire if wind is used less:

Installation of wind turbines over land areas that have alternative spatial extents, topographies and hydrological properties would produce different, but presumably still significant, climate effects. Due to the computed nonlinearity between the changes in surface roughness and the climate response, defining the optimal deployment of wind turbines is challenging. Climatic effects increase with power generated and decrease with conversion efficiency, putting aside the potential environmental effects for instance on birds and weather radar as well as on ambient noise levels. Also, for the widely spaced wind turbines simulated in our runs, the environmental effects appear small when they are generating less than 1 TW globally even with current technologies.

Note: at this point, if the problems from wind turn out to be of less importance, or of little importance at small to medium scales, wind with natural gas backup with carbon capture and storage will be an important part of the energy solution for 2030. I am still enthusiastic, I think.

Update: I received some thoughtful questions and comments. I answer them at the end.

Meredith Angwin and Rod Adams posted discussions about those who suggest that we all need to reduce waste in our lives ignore the world’s poor, who have very little energy. We all agree—InterAcademy Council makes this their first point in Lighting the Way: Toward a Sustainable Energy Future. This is also the first point in my policy presentations. However, I objected to some of what I heard implied: because at low levels of energy use, more energy is associated with longer, healthier lives, the same correlation holds at high levels (indeed, in the US I have read concerns that life expectancy will begin to drop as we use our muscles even less). And that we have little obligation to consider the implications of our choices.

Meredith responded thoughtfully in Prosperity for Rich Folks, advocating for our right to waste, because these choices may make our lives easier. It is my sense that most Americans agree with Meredith, that it is OK to put our perceived convenience ahead of all our considerations.

To be clear, there is much on which we agree beyond our strong support for nuclear power. Aging infrastructure needs to be replaced, and states/countries that ignore energy drive energy production or/and manufacturing elsewhere. Much can be accomplished by paying attention to efficiency. The point of disagreement is whether we are better off, as individuals or a society, if we place an emphasis on smaller cars, etc, and turning stuff off, opting for alternatives to driving and flying, etc.

It is normal for people to begin with unstated assumptions and then agree or disagree without checking those assumptions. Let me check here: many including Meredith and Rod believe essentially that there is enough energy for everyone, though making good choices is important. Others believe that we will run out of energy soon, and still others believe that even if there is enough energy, living more simply helps us or/and the universe. Yes/no?

I would not have begun this discussion before 1995 (when I began paying attention to energy and climate change) with a strong preference for any of those assumptions. I did not replace my car when it broke in 1991 and have lived almost two decades without a car for a variety of reasons, but concern for the environment only became important later. Much more important to me initially were cost, health, and reducing overscheduling. Over time, other advantages emerged, such as the sheer pleasure of being on a bicycle (I had always walked a lot). I did not know then, and do not know now, how many people are like me, happier without a car, or with reduced access through a carshare program, but I doubt that I am unique.

Certainly I don’t feel deprived. Cyclists live longer lives, and quite possibly healthier lives, even including the cohort with the highest death rate, very young males. We don’t have to spend so many hours working to support and maintain a 1+ ton monster. And I never enjoyed driving in the way I enjoy cycling. I have reduced fossil fuel use in a number of other ways in my life, and don’t feel deprived. I suspect that a number of us with adequate access to energy can buy better, use less, and feel as or more satisfied. It is easier to continue doing whatever we have been doing, but that doesn’t necessarily make us happier.

Happy cyclist

Giving up the car and producing endorphins is also good.

We begin with assumptions about whether there is enough energy, but how well do these gibe with analyses coming from science and policy experts re climate change? Some believe that there is enough energy, eg, if we replace almost all fossil fuel electricity with nuclear, and replace fossil fuels used for heating (natural gas, fuel oil, propane) with nuclear electricity, and go to nuclear-powered electric cars. Therefore, I hear, the use of energy is OK (this line of argument generally ignores flying). If policy experts reached this same conclusion, then I would not have major objections to those who waste (there are those that do, for a variety of reasons). Unfortunately, I have seen no major report out of the peer-review community that shows us eliminating fossil fuel use in electricity by 2050, even without electrifying all cars. Even if biofuels become greenhouse gas (GHG) neutral, we will be allocating much of ever-more precious land and water to its cultivation, and are likely to create other problems.

There may be enough energy for 2050, in the sense that policy experts assume that people will farm too much to make biomass for fuel and power, and burn too much fossil fuel (and release too much GHG) rather than make meaningful personal reductions. While some worry about peak oil, those in policy see the problem more that we will run out of atmosphere. John Holdren, science adviser to Obama, is among these:

We are running out of environment, in the sense of the capacity of the atmosphere and waters and biota of the Earth to absorb, without intolerable consequences, the impacts of mobilizing energy in the quantities and in the ways characterizing today’s energy use and that which is ahead in the “business as usual” future.

There is scientific consensus that we produce too much greenhouse gas, and that massive reductions in GHG emissions are needed. So even if we with more than enough energy did live better, longer, healthier lives, there is more to consider—sometimes it is better for us to host a party, other times to replace the roof, if we can imagine addressing GHG as an important capital expenditure. The recommendation of experts cluster around 50 – 80% reduction in GHG emissions from 2004 levels to 2050, requiring a per capita reduction of perhaps 65 – 85%, and higher than that in the developed world, and even then there will be more problems than we would like. These would affect us as well as the poor. On the one hand, scientists studying climate change would prefer an immediate disappearance of GHG emissions, and on the other, policy experts for the most part don’t see a 50 – 80% reduction as achievable, at least not easily. Even if successful, climate change will be destructive, but lack of success has a set of very scary predictions associated with it, such as large areas on every continent becoming dustbowl (pdf) this century.

Nobel Prize winner in economics, George Akerlof spoke at a climate change symposium in Berkeley, saying that we ask the wrong questions when we question whether it is convenient to change our behavior, convenient to pay a higher cost to lower GHG emissions. We don’t walk into someone’s house, eat their dinner, and then ask whether it is convenient to stop eating their dinner. Since we emit more than our share of emissions, the question shouldn’t be whether it is convenient to stop emitting someone else’s share.

The ethical dimension may be simple to Professor Akerlof, but dealing with ourselves and others can be tricky. And painful. With health care, we’d love to say yes to everyone. Following your bliss? Another yes to everyone. Unfortunately, there is not enough money to treat every medical condition, and there is not enough time to follow every path. Life requires choices, and we do not all get all we want. We prioritize, clarify how important is our own convenience, and our obligations.

No matter what people’s underlying assumption (there is more than enough, there is not enough), almost everyone has the same response to this discussion, “Don’t guilt trip me.” Guilt has not been a strong motivator for me. Some of us are motivated by the desire to understand what is right and act on that understanding. It would be nice if we lived in a world where the cost of our behavior was reflected in the price, so decisions would be easier to make, and that would be a blessing. Unfortunately, it is only as we become willing to pay attention as individuals that society will accommodate that understanding to increase the price of behavior destructive to society. Making good choices around climate change will be easier once we have a critical mass of us consider behavior change.

Most of us feel richer if we feel good about what we do for others. Studies even show that we are often happier giving someone else money than receiving the same amount. Our choices can be gifts to ourselves and others of a world more beautiful and nurturing, not a means of depriving ourselves. If we see our behavior this way, we will likely find other gifts in the choices we make.

Update: Paraphrased comments and questions

Q: Isn’t it true that technology change will yield greater GHG reductions per unit effort?

A: That’s my assumption. If 100 people could choose to put work into changing their behavior and that of others, or put the same work into promoting nuclear power, or mandating higher fuel economy, the latter is likely to result in greater GHG emissions. This is even more true if the people involved would be seen by the public as not the same old same old, but people who changed their mind, and if the nuclear work is in places like California, where new nuclear power plants are not permitted, rather than Georgia, where construction has already begun on a Gen III+ plant.

However, technology change is not sufficient. Technology in the absence of a cost for GHG even more so.

Q: Is it more important in your mind to pay attention to the inner experience?

A: First, I am clear in my mind that it is important to provide increased energy to many.

Absolutely not. I chose to go carless for a variety of reasons, and chose to avoid flying once for the environment. After that experiment, I decided that I preferred the train to flying, and so now avoid flying both for my own pleasure and the environment.

If I were to choose what is important for your soul, in the absence of climate change there would be a number of items much higher on my list than some version of living simply. With climate change, there is an important goal, to lower GHG emissions. Some people can make a small number of small changes in one day and dramatically lower GHG emissions with no sense of loss. Others need to add attentiveness to behavior for a while but will also experience no sense of loss. For some, the choices may even work better. Others may want to add GHG cost to the decision-making process—one person asked me about the GHG emissions in reaching vacation spots A and B. I provided that information, and assume that it was just part of the decision-making. A relatively small number of people, I suspect, live lives so perfect that all changes will lead to a sense of privation. Based on what people said when reducing their electricity use 10% in CA in response to the electricity crisis (I didn’t really do much, all I did was…) people in the energy-rich world could reduce GHG emissions at least 10% over the next year fairly easily.

That said, we don’t easily make choices that are good for us. I heard this story secondhand from the days when people had one TV, and TV repair took a week: people picking up the TV reported themselves as happier, the family was getting along better and talking more, and yet always picked up the TV. Another moral of the story is that we cannot expect voluntary behavior change to replace good political and societal choices.

Q: Are you really not talking about living without electricity, etc?

A: If people want to go live in a cave, fine. I use electricity and heat my house and cook and vacation. I am not advocating that anyone live without these, rather that we live with a little more intention and attention. Also, to me the question is climate change and the answer is lower GHG emissions. If you want to sew your own clothes, you’ll enjoy it and I definitely want to see and admire your achievements, but if it doesn’t reduce GHG emissions, it’s not part of the answer to climate change.

Q: What is simple living? I hear so many versions, and so many sound awful.

A: I don’t believe that I use this phrase often. For me simple living is making choices that free me and center me—making fewer, more important choices. This meaning is not universal.

Akerlof’s ethics pose a challenge to us. However, we can get there in a very different manner. Suppose we have always eaten whatever we want, whenever we want. Now for a year, we opt to change our behavior, and see how we feel at the end of the year. We may find that going for walks helps deal with anxiety that can lead to overeating, and has other benefits. We may find that we like ourselves better. We may find that walking becomes easier over time, as we walk more and eat less. We may find that the entire year has been a terrible experience, and we will never, ever do this again. Note: those of us who eat considerably more than we need really do get that this solution is for us, not for those who are starving, or who have close to normal weights.

Similarly, we could set a goal of reducing our GHG emissions 10% this year, and see how we feel at the end of the year. Take the train one way instead of flying. Drive less. Use less energy in the house. It probably won’t take much work, but you do need an accurate GHG scale. If I set a goal to reduce my GHG emissions 10% this year, and act on it, how will I feel during the year, how will I feel after 12 months? These are open-ended question; answers will vary. For many, the answers will include greater pleasure in some new choices compared to previous ones, and feeling better about ourselves, happier with who we are. Others will hate some or all of it. Success at the end of the year could lead to a new set point, or it could lead to a new question for the following year. Most important is a willingness to try this once.

I never experimented when I resented the experiment. The time I chose to take the train from the west to the east coast instead of flying, I felt an obligation to try, I was curious about how I would react, and I felt free to hate the experience and take the train no more. I used the time on the train to ask others why they took the train. I was surprised that I preferred the train over flying: being rested when I arrived rather than always rushing. Just sitting and looking at the US.

Q: What makes behavior change important, given that we are going to accomplish so little?

A: There are a number of reasons.

Economists have a model of the rational actor, but people make rational decisions better when they are changing their behavior. People who think about climate change and how they could respond are more likely to buy more efficient bulbs, appliances, etc.

Also consider society’s experience with smoking. The number of smokers and our exposure to secondhand smoke decreased as public health warnings, legislation, and behavior change among some in the public (from not smoking themselves to insisting that the spouse not smoke near the kids) worked together over a number of decades.

Perhaps most important: even though a good share of the public knows climate change is crucial to address last week, too few of us care enough to vote or work on it, or reconsider old ways of thinking on policy issues. Many of us can only acknowledge the dangers from climate change if we have found a way to begin to address it. Most people know that buying green products doesn’t do much, but that changing behavior can. Real numbers, real progress over time, for enough people, and more become willing to make climate change a priority.

Interestingly, it is my sense that those who are strongest advocates of changing behavior would benefit more from learning why nuclear power is an attractive solution and advocating for it. Those who might benefit most from changing behavior are those who don’t consider it/fear it. As more of us face our fears, society will begin to face its fears about addressing climate change.

A number of studies show that increasing CO2 is an important environmental change for plants. Now Ocean acidification impairs olfactory discrimination and homing ability of a marine fish (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) studied the effect of ocean acidification on clownfish larva:

The persistence of most coastal marine species depends on larvae finding suitable adult habitat at the end of an offshore dispersive stage that can last weeks or months. We tested the effects that ocean acidification from elevated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) could have on the ability of larvae to detect olfactory cues from adult habitats. Larval clownfish reared in control seawater (pH 8.15) discriminated between a range of cues that could help them locate reef habitat and suitable settlement sites. This discriminatory ability was disrupted when larvae were reared in conditions simulating CO2-induced ocean acidification. Larvae became strongly attracted to olfactory stimuli they normally avoided when reared at levels of ocean pH that could occur ca. 2100 (pH 7.8) and they no longer responded to any olfactory cues when reared at pH levels (pH 7.6) that might be attained later next century on a business-as-usual carbon-dioxide emissions trajectory. If acidification continues unabated, the impairment of sensory ability will reduce population sustainability of many marine species, with potentially profound consequences for marine diversity.

Nature Conservancy An important adaptation to climate change is to minimize other dangers to species.

Friends Energy Project is now updated to the 21st century. I hope to change news and events at least once every 2 weeks, possibly more often. Is there anything you would like to see added?

The revised post on discernment has received comments, but none online. Do you have anything to say online or off?

A new upload, you can discuss it.

Differences Among Friends on Energy: Friendly and UnFriendly responses to Friends Energy Project

Reading Ian McEwen’s excellent Solar, I ran across some numbers and checked them with Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

From Working Group 2, chapter 8 (pdf, go to document to see sources)

8.2.10 Ultraviolet radiation and health
Solar ultraviolet radiation (UVR) exposure causes a range of health impacts. Globally, excessive solar UVR exposure has caused the loss of approximately 1.5 million disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) (0.1% of the total global burden of disease) and 60,000 premature deaths in the year 2000. The greatest burdens result from UVR-induced cortical cataracts, cutaneous malignant melanoma, and sunburn (although the latter estimates are highly uncertain due to the paucity of data). UVR exposure may weaken the immune response to certain vaccinations, which would reduce their effectiveness. However, there are also important health benefits: exposure to radiation in the ultraviolet B frequency band is required for the production of vitamin D in the body. Lack of sun exposure may lead to osteomalacia (rickets) and other disorders caused by vitamin D deficiencies.

8.4.1.1 Global burden of disease study
The World Health Organization conducted a regional and global comparative risk assessment to quantify the amount of premature morbidity and mortality due to a range of risk factors, including climate change, and to estimate the benefit of interventions to remove or reduce these risk factors. In the year 2000, climate change is estimated to have caused the loss of over 150,000 lives and 5,500,000 DALYs (0.3% of deaths and 0.4% of DALYs, respectively). The assessment also addressed how much of the future burden of climate change could be avoided by stabilising greenhouse gas emissions. The health outcomes included were chosen based on known sensitivity to climate variation, predicted future importance, and availability of quantitative global models (or the feasibility of constructing them).

8.7.1 Health and climate protection: clean energy
In many low-income countries, access to electricity is limited. Over half of the world’s population still relies on biomass fuels and coal to meet their energy needs. These biomass fuels have low combustion efficiency and a significant, but unknown, portion is harvested non-renewably, thus contributing to net carbon emissions. The products of incomplete combustion from small-scale biomass combustion contain a number of health-damaging pollutants, including small particles, carbon monoxide, polyaromatic hydrocarbons and a range of toxic volatile organic compounds. Human exposures to these pollutants within homes are large in comparison with outdoor air pollution exposures. Current best estimates, based on published epidemiological studies, are that biomass fuels in households are responsible annually for approximately 0.7 to 2.1 million premature deaths in low-income countries (from a combination of lower-respiratory infections, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and lung cancer). About two-thirds occur in children under the age of five and most of the rest occur in women.

Better cooking stoves use less fuel, reduce air pollution, reduce the burden on the environment and the women who collect wood, and reduce attacks on the women.

Greg Craven in his excellent What’s the Worst That Could Happen? A Rational Response to the Climate Change Debate, spends chapter 3 explaining why we should never trust ourselves, and chapter 4 on which sources he does trust and why.

Greg Craven

Reading these two chapters and doing his exercise on sources may help center any group studying climate change.

I rely on somewhat different sources than does Craven. I don’t ever look for the facts in one category he considers important, people saying something different than you expect—while I learn a lot from military analyses of the consequences of climate change, I don’t necessarily consider them reliable on climate change. Another difference between our lists is that I rely on the hierarchy scientists have created, eg, for Chernobyl facts, go to International Atomic Energy Agency. For climate change facts, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change provides the top level of discernment.

But over time, I have begun to understand which just plain folks I trust on climate change. Not to get the facts right, perhaps, but I trust that they care about climate change. So far, I’ve identified only one characteristic: they have changed their mind on something important.

Most people talking about climate change solutions sound just like they did before their interest in climate change. In the old days, they knew that the most important environmental issue was expanding nuclear power, eliminating nuclear power, avoiding meat, renewables, or living simply. Now it turns out that these are the most important solutions to climate change. They sound to me like they have added an amplifier to their recording: see, my solution is absolutely critical!!!!!!!!!

I also distrust their interest in climate change if they reference a number of extraneous issues. Wall Street Journal op-ed pieces on climate change frequently mention the United Nations as a problem. Many addressing climate change want to solve all the world problems, not just climate change and biodiversity loss, but poverty and women’s rights. I don’t object to solving all the world’s problems, but I don’t trust people to focus who have too large a vision.

So give me someone who emphasizes behavior change today in addition to promoting nuclear power from times long ago, or who promotes nuclear power now in addition to advocating for behavior change way back when. Someone who wants to focus on a small number of topics related to climate change (affordable energy, pollution), but doesn’t bring up furthering democracy or raising children. I hear that person as so interested in climate change, she is willing to concede that her old thinking was insufficient.

I know intellectually that I am unfair. Until I find a way to bring my intellect and my emotions into harmony, this is where I am.

What about you?

I’ve been asked a number of times to include water on my greenhouse gas spreadsheet, and now have the numbers to do so. Energy demands for water use are significant. Unfortunately, most of the water we consume never appears on our home water bill. Our bill doesn’t show us water use for eating and showering elsewhere, or for water use in agriculture or manufacturing—1 kg of cotton requires 2900 gallons of water (global average), a t-shirt 715 gallons. In many areas of the world, including California and the US, people consume fossil water (groundwater), and replacement will come from higher emissions desalination.

According to California Energy Commission (pdf), 19% of CA use of electricity, 32% of natural gas, and 88 million gallons of diesel goes to water supply and treatment, and wastewater treatment, for all uses. Energy for residential water, at least in California, comes mainly from electricity.

So how much of my annual electricity usage belongs to the category water use? What percentage of my annual water use appears on my home water bill?

Electricity for home water use
The US average, according to Energy Star’s Water/Wastewater Focus: A National, Collaborative Approach to Enhance Energy Performance within Municipal Facilities (pdf), is 1.5 kWh/thousand gallons (kgal) drinking water, and another 1.2 kWh/kgal sewage. (Typically about half of water goes to sewage.) Variations can be large—in my water district, East Bay Municipal Water District (pdf), water flows downhill, and the electricity use is 1.25 kWh/kgal, with another 1.5 kWh/kgal sewage. EBMUD estimates that a person halfway uphill in Berkeley/Oakland uses 25 kWh/year more than a person in the flats (assumes 50 gallons/day, personal communication David Beyer, EBMUD). Getting water to southern CA requires more pumping, and electricity costs are higher, 6.4 kWh/kgal.

To calculate your energy use for water, for indoor and outdoor residential, plus some for work or school, restaurants, and the gym:

• Get your yearly water use from your bills. Multiply ccf (hundred cubic feet) by 748 to get gallons. Divide by 1,000 to get water consumption in kgal.

• Round up. My assumption is that everyone should round up by at least the larger of 10 gallons/day or 20%, to count water use outside the home, from vacations and toilets and restaurants and showers at the gym to the water use on veggies at the store, etc. People in apartments who use a lot of water outside the home may want to double what the bill tells you.

• To calculate wastewater use, multiply water consumption by a value between 0.4 (a high percentage of your water goes into the yard rather than wastewater) and 1 (apartment dweller).

• Multiply water use estimate by electricity use/kgal, and multiply wastewater estimate by electricity use/kgal.

• Divide by the size of household to get per capita electricity use.

Example
Family Ex’s bill says that the two residents use 100 gallons/day, or 36,500/year = 36.5 kgal/year.

The Exes eat out about 10 meals/week, and one goes to the gym a couple of times/week. They are away from home 20 days/year. Add 40%, to get 51 kgal/year. (Your guess is probably better than mine.) If the Exes are typical, wastewater will be half that, or 26 kgal/year.

Multiply water use by 1.5 kWh/kgal, and wastewater by 1.2 kWh/kgal. (US values)

Electricity use: 51 (1.5) + 26 (1.2) = 110 kWh

Per capita electricity associated with water use for the two Exes is about 55 kWh/year.

Reducing water use
The Exes can reduce water use in a number of ways—see your local water utility for recommendations. Here is EBMUD’s watersmart page and their information on gray water. The NY Times describes the work of Greywater Guerrillas, a group that feels that the CA code is too complex, and expensive, in The Dirty Water Underground.

gray water idea from the greywater guerrillas

Xeriscaping can add beauty as well as reduce water use.

Suggestions I don’t always see on lists of ways to save energy for water:
• cook with less water—boil only as much as you need.
• turn water on and off while washing dishes. Run water continuously and you’ll use several times as much water.

More information
• The energy to heat water is not included, but is significant. If you heat water with natural gas, then 34 gallons of hot water for an entire clothes wash cycle requires 0.34 therms. Warm water has about half the energy requirements of hot water. Compare this to the energy cost of operating the washer, 0.3 kWh electricity. A gas dryer might use 0.17 therm, plus 0.5 kWh electricity, and an electric dryer 3.3 kWh. One reason so many utilities give rebates on water efficient washers is to reduce hot water use.

Pardee Reservoir is part of the EBMUD water system.

• Actual water use is MUCH greater than our bill tells us. According to Energy and Air Emission Effects of Water Supply (pdf), typical water use is 86 kgal/year, more than 230 gallons/day: this counts commercial and educational establishments, industry, parks, swimming pools, etc.

We in EBMUD’s service area use 130 gallons/person/day. These numbers are down because we are responding to the drought, and because industry has moved away. Numbers will stay down because we have adopted drought behavior. (personal communication Michelle Blackwell, EBMUD)

In numbers that have surely decreased—Californians have been changing their behavior, water use has becomes a tad bit more efficient, and industry has declined in both real and per capita terms—estimated CA water use in 2000 was 7 million acre feet for 34 million people, 180 gallons per day (gpd) per person, 67 kgal/year.

By sector in CA:
indoor residential: 22 kgal/year, 60 gpd
outdoor residential: estimates range from 9.4 kgal/year, 26 gpd to twice as much
commercial/institutional: 18 kgal/year, 41 gpd
industrial: 6.4 kgal/year, 17 gpd
unaccounted for: 6.7 kgal/year, 17 gpd
Waste Not, Want Not: The Potential for Urban Water Conservation in California (pdf)

For US numbers, see USGS Estimated Use of Water in the United States in 2000 (Notes: US population in 2000 was 281 million. Water used by power plants is for the most part returned, though at a higher temperature.)

irrigation: 490 gpd per person
public-supplied for 85% of the population: 180 gpd
self-supplied industrial: 70 gpd
self-supplied domestic, livestock, aquaculture, and mining: 46 gpd

• In addition to greenhouse gases, each 1000 gallons CA water use (pdf) produces 7.2 g NOx, 1.5 g particulate matter, and 11 g SOx. US averages are about 60% worse for greenhouse gas emissions, twice as bad for NOx, 10x as bad for particulate matter, and 2.5x as bad for SOx. This is due primarily to a different mix of sources of electricity.

• Desalination will become increasingly important in CA (and elsewhere) as population increases from 37 million today to 46.5 million by 2030 (US Census).

Drinking water scarcity is an issue in many parts of the world. By 2025, 1.8 billion people will be living in areas likely to experience absolute water scarcity. More than 40% of the world’s population may face serious water shortages if they must rely solely on locally available freshwater. Some of these places experience scarcity due to climate and others because infrastructure is unavailable; however, in some places, both issues are problematic.

Energy and Air Emission Effects of Water Supply (pdf)

Desalination will increase energy use/kgal by as little as 50% or as much as 140%.

• In dry states, water use also contributes indirectly to climate change, and ecosystem damage, because competition between ecosystem needs and human needs almost always lead to less productive ecosystems, and reduced carbon dioxide taken out of the atmosphere.

From the April 16 Science, Biotech Crops Good for Farmers and Environment (subscription required):

Fourteen years after genetically engineered crops began to take off in the United States, the overall benefits to farmers are clear, according to a new report from the National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academies. The shift from conventionally grown crops has paid off economically and environmentally, says the panel. “We can stop arguing about whether the environmental and economic impacts are significant,” says agricultural economist Nicholas Kalaitzandonakes of the University of Missouri, Columbia, who was not on the panel…

Reduced tillage could offer the “largest single environmental benefit of GE crops,” the panel found, because it should mean less sediment, fertilizer, and pesticides washing into streams. But this hasn’t been proven, so the panel recommends that the U.S. Geological Survey investigate the impact of reduced tillage on water quality.

Key findings from Impact of Genetically Engineered Crops on Farm Sustainability in the United States, produced by National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences (order reflect report structure rather than importance):

• When adopting GE [genetically engineered] herbicide-resistant (HR) crops, farmers mainly substituted the herbicide glyphosate for more toxic herbicides. However, the predominant reliance on glyphosate is now reducing the effectiveness of this weed-management tool.

• The adoption of HR crops complements conservation tillage practices, which reduces the adverse effects of tillage on soil and water quality.

• Targeting specific plant insect pests with Bt corn and cotton has been successful, and the ability to target specific plant pests in corn and cotton continues to expand. Insecticide use has decreased with the adoption of insect-resistant (IR) crops. The emergence of insect resistance to Bt crops has been low so far and of little economic or agronomic consequence; two pest species have evolved resistance to Bt crops in the United States.

• For the three major GE crops, gene flow to wild or weedy relatives has not been a concern to date because compatible relatives of corn and soybean do not exist in the United States and are only local for cotton. For other GE crops, the situation varies according to species. However, gene flow to non-GE crops has been a concern for farmers whose markets depend on an absence of GE traits in their products. The potential risks presented by gene flows may increase as GE traits are introduced into more crops.

• Farmers who have GE crops have experienced lower costs of production and obtained higher yields in many cases because of more cost-effective weed control and reduced losses from insect pests. Many farmers have benefited economically from the adoption of Bt crops by using lower amounts of or less expensive insecticide applications, particularly where insect pest populations were high and difficult to treat before the advent of Bt crops.

• Adapters of GE crops experienced increased worker safety and greater simplicity and flexibility in farm management, benefitting farmers even though the cost of GE seed is higher than non-GE seed. Newer varieties of GE crops with multiple GE traits appear to reduce production risk for adopters.

• The effect GE crops have had on prices received by farmers for soybeans, corn, and cotton is not completely understood.

• To the extent that economic effects of GE-crop plantings on non-GE producers are understood, the results are mixed. By and large, these effects have not received adequate research. [Eg, food safety increased in livestock feed, downward pressure on price, lower pest control costs due to reduced pest populations, cost of new insecticides whether or not non-GE farming practices led to the need]

• Research on the dissemination of earlier technological development in agriculture suggests that favorable and unfavorable social impacts exist from the dissemination of genetic-engineering technology. However, these impacts have not been identified or analyzed. [eg, the impact on farmers with less access to credit, fewer social connections to university and private-sector researchers who grow crops for smaller markets, labor dynamics, farm structure, community viability]

• The proprietary terms under which private-sector firms supply GE seeds to the market has not adversely affected the economic welfare of farmers who adopt GE crops. Nevertheless, ongoing research is needed to investigate how market structure may evolve and affect access to non-GE or single-trait seed. Furthermore, there has been little research on how increasing market concentration of seed suppliers affects overall yield benefits, crop genetic diversity, seed prices, and farmers’ planting decisions and options.

Conclusions and Recommendations

• Weed problems in fields of HR crops will become more common as weeds evolve resistance to glyphosate or weed communities less susceptible to glyphosate become established in areas treated exclusively with that herbicide. Though problems of evolved resistance and weed shifts are not unique to HR crops, their occurrence, which is documented, diminishes the effectiveness of a weed-control practice that has minimal environmental impacts. Weed resistance to glyphosate may cause farmers to return to tillage as a weed-management tool and to the use of potentially more toxic herbicides. A number of new genetically engineered HR cultivars are currently under development and may provide growers with other weed management options when fully commercialized. However, the sustainability of these new GE cultivars will also be a function of how the traits are managed. If they are managed in the same fashion as the current genetically engineered HR cultivars, the same problems of evolved herbicide resistance and weed shifts may occur. Therefore, farmers of HR crops should incorporate more diverse management practices, such as herbicide rotation, herbicide application sequences, and tank-mixes of more than one herbicide; herbicides with different modes of action, method of application, and persistence; cultural and mechanical control practices; and equipment-cleaning and harvest practice that minimize the dispersal of HR weeds.

• Given that agriculture is the largest source of surface water pollution, improvements in water quality resulting from the complementary nature of herbicide-resistance technology and conservation tillage may represent the largest single environmental benefit of GE crops. However, the infrastructure to track and analyze these effects is not in place.

• The environmental, economic, and social effects on adopters and nonadopters of GE crops has changed over time, particularly because of changes in pest responses to GE crops, the consolidation of the seed industry, and the incorporation of GE traits into most varieties of corn, soybean, and cotton. However, empirical research into the environmental and economic effects of changing market conditions, and farmer practices have not kept pace. Furthermore, little work has been conducted regarding the effects on livestock producers and nonadopters and on the social impacts of GE crops. Issues in need of further investigation include the costs and benefits of shifts in pest management for non-GE producers due to the adoption of GE cops, the value of market opportunities afforded to organic farmers by defining their products as non-GE crops, the economic impacts of GE-crop adoption on livestock producers, and the costs to farmers, marketers, and processors of the presence of approved or unapproved GE traits and crops in products intended for restricted markets. As more GE traits are developed and inserted into existing GE crops or into other crops, understanding the impacts on all farmers will become even more important to ensuring that genetic-engineering technology is used in a way that facilitates environment, economic, and social sustainability in U.S. agriculture.

• Commercialized GE traits are targeted at pest control, and when used properly, have been effective at reducing pest problems with economic and environmental benefits to farmers. However, genetic engineering could be used in more crops, in novel ways beyond herbicide and insecticide resistance, and for a greater diversity of purposes. With proper management, genetic-engineering technology could help address food insecurity by reducing yield losses though its introduction into other crops and with the development of other yield protection traits like drought tolerance. Crop biotechnology could also address “public good” issues that will be undersupplied by the market acting alone. Some firms are working on GE traits that address public goods issues. However, industry has insufficient incentive to invest enough in research and development for those purposes when firms cannot collect revenue from innovations that generate net benefits beyond the farm. Therefore, the development of these traits will require greater collaboration between the public and private sectors because the benefits extend beyond farmers to the society in general. The implementation of a targeted and tailored regulatory approach to GE-trait development and commercialization that meets human and environmental safety standards while minimizing unnecessary expenses will aid this agenda (Ervin and Webb, 2006).

transgenic methods

Three 8th-grade students produced a video on nuclear power and won the C-Span StudentCam 2010 award.

Here is the video and transcript of their interview after they were told they won. (The transcript is not complete.) After the interview, stay tuned to see first prize winners for high school and middle school categories.

The short video Skype includes interviews with people as diverse as Dale Klein, then head of Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and anti-nuclear activist Helen Caldicott.

I’ve been reading to prepare for the climate activist group, and have had no time for writing. Here are some brief descriptions of two of the books, with some online reading material. I intend to post more on them.

Mike Hulme’s Why We Disagree About Climate Change addresses a wide variety of challenges to agreement, from differing abilities to see the atmosphere, nature, as something that can be altered, to good people/good economists analyzing costs and benefits very differently, to distinct views of nature and solutions held by different cultures.

Listen to Hulme here.

Hulme’s discussion on cultures, over several chapters, cites several studies from social scientists on Cultural Theory. The idea behind cultural theory, originally developed by Mary Douglas (here is her description of both the theory and its history, pdf), is that which culture we belong can be determined with just two characteristics:

• strong or weak group identity (adherence to group norms)
• strong or weak grid (methods of control, or regimentation)

As described in a Guardian article on Mary Douglas,

The four [cultural] types are plotted on a graph with two axes. The horizontal axis represents the strength of group norms, such as family and local community, while the vertical axis represents the strength of the grid – those less intimate mechanisms of control such as laws, religious authority, economic forces and institutional disciplines.

Categories
• Strong group boundaries and minimal prescriptions—egalitarian
• Strong group boundaries and strong prescriptions—hierarchical
• Bound neither group incorporation nor prescribed roles—individualistic
• Excluded from group but strong prescriptions—fatalistic
Some lists include a 5th category, those few who withdraw from what they see as coercive or manipulative social involvement altogether—hermit

You might be in one culture here and another there, but most of us don’t switch wildly from culture to culture as we go through the day. Cultural theory helps us understand the different arguments we present and encounter, but no one person spends her life in a single culture.

Most groups (your workplace, religious group, bicycling group) include people from more than one, or all, cultures, but the group itself has a cultural identity. Google and Department of Energy are examples of two different work cultures, one individualist, one hierarchical. And there can be big differences among cultures that share similarities: compare Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Catholic Church.

People adopt a culture based in part on how they see nature, and in part they see nature in a certain way to justify their way of living. The cultures we join then provide a source, as Douglas says, of “irreconcilable conflict” between members of different cultures; besides seeing the world differently from one another, our differing views are means of expressing moral principles and loyalties to our cultures. “The message for research is never to consider conflict of opinions without looking for the underlying conflict between institutional forms. Cultural attack and persecution are the spice of life for a community.” We like to think that we do better with our time than expressing superiority, but for most of us, the contrast with other cultures helps us define ourselves, orient ourselves, and feel good about ourselves.

Although Douglas’ synopsis (pdf) provides a good starting place, cultural theory is more complicated in its details.

The book Cultural Theory by Michael Thompson, Richard Ellis, and Aaron Wildavsky, provides more detailed analysis. A number of more recent books provide more updated thinking on the subject.

More reading on the web:
• Cultural cognition project

• Cultural Cognition and Public Policy

• Cultural Cognition of Scientific Consensus Cultural cognition shapes our beliefs about scientific consensus.

• Risk and Culture study

• Second study

Upcoming: how do different cultures see nature? How do we see the solutions to nature’s problems?

Can someone explain this?

RealClimate has posted 5 discussions in the last two weeks on British journalistic handling of climate change, e.g.,

Daily Mangle It begins:

Yesterday, the Daily Mail of the UK published a predictably inaccurate article entitled “Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995?.

The Guardian Disappoints It begins

Over the last few weeks or so the UK Guardian (who occasionally reprint our posts) has published a 12-part series about the stolen CRU emails by Fred Pearce that are well below the normal Guardian standards of reporting. We delineate some of the errors and misrepresentations below. While this has to be seen on a backdrop of an almost complete collapse in reporting standards across the UK media on the issue of climate change, it can’t be excused on the basis that the Mail or the Times is just as bad.

Whatevergate It begins:

It won’t have escaped many of our readers’ notice that there has been what can only be described as a media frenzy (mostly in the UK) with regards to climate change in recent weeks. The coverage has contained more bad reporting, misrepresentation and confusion on the subject than we have seen in such a short time anywhere. While the UK newspaper scene is uniquely competitive (especially compared to the US with over half a dozen national dailies selling in the same market), and historically there have been equally frenzied bouts of mis-reporting in the past on topics as diverse as pit bulls, vaccines and child abductions, there is something new in this mess that is worth discussing.

Contrast that with the treatment of Simon Singh, a science writer with a PhD in physics, author of Fermat’s Last Theorem and Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe.

Simon Singh is in the midst of a libel suit he is expected to lose. His crime is a science book, Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial.

From a NY Times blog (with links):

He wrote, “The British Chiropractic Association claims that their members can help treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying, even though there is not a jot of evidence. This organisation is the respectable face of the chiropractic profession and yet it happily promotes bogus treatments.”

The BCA asked for a retraction and an apology. Singh refused. The Guardian offered the BCA the opportunity to print a clarification and write a response, so they could lay out evidence supporting their claims. The BCA refused. The libel case is the result. (Note that the case is peculiar in that it has been brought against Singh personally, not against the newspaper that published the article, as is more usual.)

Dr. Simon Singh

Singh is being sued for writing a book on the inadequate justification for some medical treatments. If the climatologists, and groups like IPCC, being maligned by the British media had jillions of dollars and unlimited time, could they also sue? If libel laws are so draconian in the UK (and in many parts of the US, laws are being passed to protect Americans from British law), why do journalists there engage in smear campaigns?

Greg Craven in What’s the worst that could happen? explains how he decides which sources he depends on. I am offering my own explanation after sending someone a list of some of the sources I depend on. He said, yes, he relied on the same sources, and then forwarded a report from a group of a very different kind. So, it’s an interesting question. My criteria differ from Craven’s, and yours differ from both of ours. How do you decide which sources you trust, and why?

First, some definitions:
• Sources are the original reports of data, analysis, or meta-analysis (combining data from multiple sources, as in the uber-reports from groups like IPCC)
• Peer-review is the process of review by elites in the same field (hence, “peers” of the researcher or theorist submitting the report.) In the science or policy community, peer-review is the first step toward publication or use of the data. These communities are usually careful to avoid relying on or citing data that has not been subjected to peer review.
• Channels pass on information. I aspire to be a channel, try to avoid being a source, i.e., adding mistakes. The NY Times is another example of a channel.

Besides peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed work, there is a category called gray literature, described in RealClimate’s IPCC errors: facts and spin. This category includes major organizations such as International Energy Agency, World Bank, United Nations Environmental Programme, government statistics offices, and more. Groups like World Wildlife Fund are also included, but their information needs to be even more carefully checked. Generally, it is more useful to cite the original source WWF depends on and avoid citing WWF.

So my criteria for passing along information on scientific and policy topics: Is it
• peer-reviewed, e.g., published in peer-reviewed journals
• respected by the scientific or policy expert community, as shown by its inclusion in major reports such as National Academy of Sciences of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
• accepted over time, surviving or correcting any criticism that may arise (e.g., no disagreement appears in Science or Nature magazines).

I’m pretty conservative, and rarely use information/analysis in my presentations before it reaches major report status.

Everything I’ve described depends on writing rather than personal statements. People can be respected or not in their field of expertise, but few speak for the science community. Election to head American Association for the Advancement of Science is one of the ways scientists communicate that the person is trusted to report scientific understanding, including nuance.

I have heard a number of people and organizations willing to accept the reports of IPCC on science and impacts, but ignore IPCC’s policy analysis. If this describes you, perhaps you can explain how you choose your sources. Whatever your answers, please share!

Addendum The reason I use this method is because when I started looking into energy and environmental issues, I discovered I had misunderstandings both in facts and interpretation. Scientists and policy makers make mistake—those errors on Himalayan glaciers made it into my presentation. But the number of errors has declined markedly in recent years.

This group was first discussed here, now some more details.

We will meet bi-monthly from the end of March to early June, resuming in the fall. Some of us will meet in person while others will participate through videoconferencing. Two different kinds of meetings will occur each month: one, a class on concepts and practices of effective climate activism; the other, a time to plan, revise and carry out individual or group projects. For the activist portion, we will apply three “vital behaviors” addressed in the class sessions. Leave a comment (saying “do not publish”) to sign up for the group.

A tentative list of topics offers a starting point for discussion, revisable as we go along:
• Sources of information Which sources can I count on, and why? How do I choose between conflicting sources? Which communicate to people like me/different from me? What do IPCC and the sources they rely on say that makes me uncomfortable? How do I respond to this discomfort?

• Education Which facts and images are most likely to push the public to consider changing behavior (e.g., polar bears, changes in precipitation, higher temperature, health effects)? Experiences may be more persuasive than data, but data matter. How can we combine these to communicate effectively?

• Communication strategies Some work, some don’t. How do I tailor messages to people like myself vs. people who are different; what about cultural barriers; resistance to/distrust of data?

• Confusions about solutions What makes a real difference? How can we shift focus from small-impact solutions (eg, recycling and avoiding hair spray) to large-impact solutions aimed primarily at climate change? How do we evaluate and explain to others which solutions are worth working on?

• Handling emotions How do we help people perceive the urgency of the problem, then prevent despair once they do? What are the emotions (e.g., denial, fear) that lie behind refusal to talk about climate change, insistence that it isn’t happening, or insistence on certain solutions? How do we balance our ideals with desires for “the good life”?

• Envisioning the future Our message is not about how things are going to get better—because they won’t. Suppose the best we can do is to get worse less fast? How can we use thinking about the future to galvanize action rather than mire us in defeat?

• Targeting influencers Given the limits of our own personal influence, whom can we reach to change their message? (e.g., politicians, environmental groups, news media, on-line groups.)

• Burning Issues What are the current policy debates an activist should prepare for? E.g., do we have technology today to address climate change or do we need to invest in future technologies? Cap and trade vs tax – both or which, and why? Aid for green solutions in other nations? Revised codes for architecture? Other laws?

Muir Woods—We all have pictures in our mind of the beauty of Earth. What are yours?

NOAA has set up a new site:

Climate Watch magazine, includes Arctic Air Ushers in Chilly December and January too, it’s due to Arctic Oscillation, with the Arctic currently at higher than average air pressure. The Arctic is much warmer than usual.

Data and Services, including Climate and You

Understanding Climate, including Annual State of the Climate report.

Videos, including Climate Forecasts Improve Humanitarian Decision Making in West Africa

Education, including Teaching Resources

Climate trends available at climate.gov—doesn’t look like temperatures have stabilized to me.

The new group will meet over 6 months, beginning in late March. Some will meet together in person, others to participate through videoconferencing.

The Forecast: Climatologists are warning that the temperature increase over pre-industrial times could reach 4°C (>7°F) by 2060. Many more areas would see decreased precipitation; others with increased precipitation would still have drier soil, causing floods and famine; the hottest day of the year in northeastern North America could be 18-22°F hotter than ever before. Yet the numbers of Americans seeing climate change as serious, or caused by what we do, declined significantly in the last year and a half.

The Invitation: Become a Climate Change Activist. Join the support and learning group described below to give your activism focus and impact. For instance, an effective climate change activist engages in a few vital behaviors:

• Teaching climate change science and impacts to others and hold them emotionally during the process. Those who don’t take climate change seriously are often in emotional denial. Denial is also seen in the solutions people choose.

• Reducing your own greenhouse gas emissions in the coming year, and working with others to reduce theirs. This gives the activist a realistic sense of what helps and what blocks voluntary behavior change, which is a necessary part of the solution.

• Finding a solution that Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says is necessary and important, ideally one that makes you uncomfortable. Learn why policy analysts say it’s necessary, and advocate for it. The goal is to move away from choosing solutions we want, to working for solutions that are recognized as essential.

• Accessing the spiritual wellsprings that support and nurture us in selfless activism. We will keep a process log or journal that includes reflections on where and how we seek guidance and draw strength for the struggle, as well as honestly naming our doubts, concerns and questions about what is being asked of us.

The Format for Group Support and Study: meet twice monthly for six months.
• one session/month to study what is known about teaching and working on climate change, update our current information and evaluate sources.
• one session/month to work on vital behaviors above, and evaluate impact of your actions. The group may unite to work on one project, or support one another on a range of projects.

Prerequisites: Besides commitment to the group and its aims, a general agreement on sources (IPCC and the sources IPCC sees as valid) is important. There are sources that tell us that IPCC is wrong, but they are rarely peer-reviewed (a minimum requirement) and feed into our prejudices rather than provide a much-needed guide to what’s real.

I’ve heard this question so many times: what can I do that will be effective? Perhaps this group can help you answer that question.

photo credit

Leave a comment (with a “do not publish”) if you are interested in joining this group. We’ll begin in late March, and take a summer vacation. Young people also welcome. The hope is to meet together in Berkeley and online at the same time.

This addendum adds details.

Share with others who might be interested.

When I taught science, I learned that some students believe scientists are white men.

Many are, of course, but there are a large number of exceptions, many quite prominent. Shirley Jackson, past president of American Association for the Advancement of Science, physicist, etc, etc.

Shirley Jackson

David Blackwell, mathematician, etc (check out video interviews, including his experience in elementary school, Howard, and Berkeley).

David Blackwell

And many, many more.

From the new National Academies African American History Program site, a partial list of African Americans who have made significant contributions to science, engineering, and medicine.

REDD, Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation, has been described as one of the few accomplishments at Copenhagen, an agreement by the rich world to pay people in the forested world to care for the land.

Scientists don’t find this a slam-dunk solution—problems include reversibility (land owners changing their mind, or forest fire), additionality (is another forest being cut down?), etc.

Now a new report, Will the $3.5 billion forest fund work?, asks whether it makes sense in the absence of very clear rules to throw $3.5 billion at parts of the world that haven’t done so well with these problems and this kind of money in the past.

Two examples from the report:

The Surui have been involved in a dispute over land ownership. Here teens show off the solar panels.

India forest rights laws: do they protect the poor and the forests? Many don’t feel that these are the actual government objectives.

From a study at UC, Berkeley: Trees invading warming Arctic will cause warming over entire region, study shows:

As the Arctic warms, shrubs and other plants are moving in, making the area more amenable to trees. One way they do this is through local warming: snow, and the bare ground replacing the snow, both have higher albedo, that is they reflect more sunlight, than do the darker plants moving in. Now another cause of Arctic warming has been found. Trees add water vapor to the Arctic air.

“Broad-leaved deciduous trees are not as dark as evergreen trees and so are generally assumed to be less important. But broad-leaved trees transpire a lot more water through their leaves and are actually able to change the water vapor content and increase the greenhouse effect. As the air warms, it can hold more water vapor, and the greenhouse effect increases further,” [UC Berkeley graduate student Abigail L.] Swann said. “So, broad-leaved trees end up warming the entire Arctic.”

More importantly, the researchers’ model predicts that the increased water vapor would melt more sea ice, resulting in more absorption of sunlight by the open ocean and dumping more water vapor into the atmosphere. This positive feedback will warm the land even more and encourage faster, more efficient tree growth and perhaps a faster expansion of trees into the Arctic.

All told, the model predicts an additional 1 degree Celsius increase in temperature over the Arctic as a result of this effect. Global warming already is predicted to increase temperatures in the Arctic between 5 and 7 degrees Celsius within the next 100 years.

Dr. Robert DuPont got a phone call one day to ask him about nuclear power. His specialty is phobias, people whose behavior is restricted by all the what ifs in their lives. A journalist persuaded him to watch 11 years of media coverage on US nuclear power, coverage dominated by what ifs. From a PBS interview:

[F]ear is very important, because danger is around the corner. And fear is a way of signaling that there might be a problem ahead. It’s a reaction to the possibility of a predator lurking behind that bush when you’re out walking. So I think being able to anticipate dangers is very important.

Yet nuclear power’s safety record is excellent. So what accounts for public perception? After all, fear of what ifs doesn’t do us much good.

Well, there are a number of factors. One is that the threat is concentrated. It’s the fear like Three Mile Island. A reporter said off the record that if the public only knew, the East Coast of the United States was almost destroyed. Well, of course, nothing like that happened, but that was in his mind. And he thought about that. So it’s a cataclysmic event that really gets people going. It’s a risk people don’t control. People accept tremendous risk if they control it. But if it’s controlled by somebody else, they can’t accept it. If it’s perceived as needed, people will accepted it; whereas if it’s not perceived as needed, they will dismiss it. The problem of familiarity is probably the most important. And that is when we’re familiar with something, we don’t fear it. But when it’s alien, when it’s unfamiliar, we fear it more.

And on all four counts, nuclear power generates fear. It’s a cataclysmic accident that people are concerned about, some desperate kind of thing. It’s controlled by “them”, the utilities or the government, the scientists, or whoever it is, that is perceived as being the bad guys. It’s unfamiliar to most people. And most people feel they don’t really need nuclear power; that they can get their power from coal or oil or windmills or some other basis. They don’t really need the nuclear power.

photo credit

photo credit DuPont’s work antedates driving while texting.

In contrast to the what ifs toward nuclear power, often our reaction to fear is insufficient. I hear this frequently as, “Well, we have to die of something” when people talk about cigarettes, alcohol, and coal use (direct pollution from coal still kills more people yearly than climate change). DuPont says,

The capacity of human fear to be eroded by repetition, by familiarity, is unlimited. It is just an amazing thing, that no matter what the risk is, if the thing is repeated over and over again, there’s no fear. There’s no protection from the fear. People will continue to do something over and over again, even if it has a terrible probability of a disaster.

And the single best example of that is cigarette smoking. Everybody knows cigarette smoking is lethal. There is no question about that. It’s not debated. It’s known that it’s lethal. And we have 55 million people who not only voluntarily smoke, but who pay billions of dollars, $40 billion a year, for the privilege of killing themselves with this known lethal agent. Now, if fear were really protecting us, you couldn’t have any smokers. It would be impossible. So you realize that fear is a very imperfect shield against health risks….

So simply getting rid of fear is not a health-promoting goal. What’s important in both cases is to have the fear be realistic; that the fear fits the facts of the risk. And from my point of view, the contrast is very clear. With respect to drug abuse, we want more fear; and with respect to nuclear power, we want less fear in terms of a public health or the public interest goals.

So what can we do?

It’s quite remarkable to me, the number of Americans who hold anti-nuclear views. For them it’s like motherhood and apple pie. I mean, they don’t even get to the point of asking a question of what it is that’s going on. It’s just taken for granted.

Perhaps the first step for anti-nuclear power people is to ask a question. “What about nuclear waste?” is a statement, what are your questions?

Nuclear phobia–phobic thinking about nuclear power: A discussion with Robert L. DuPont was published in 1980, and is now out of print.

image credit. China is more dangerous than the US, where National Academy of Science estimates 10,000 die from coal power pollution each year. Chernobyl (pdf) has killed 50 – 60 so far, with up to 4,000 more deaths possible over the next 6 decades from that initial exposure.

scary? image showing water vapor, from an anti-nuclear site

Sometimes people tell me that they are also opposed to people dying from coal power. But nationwide, is there is much fascination with the sins of coal power? Texting while driving gets surprisingly little attention among the public compared to concerns about brain cancer from cell phone radiation, even though brain cancer rates have declined since 1987.

I’m interested in how people challenge this tendency in ourselves and others to apply worry disproportionate to actual risk.