A Musing Environment

Yes, there is colony collapse disorder, but according to today’s Washington Post:

…some experts say the more likely reason for this year’s weak honey crop, which the National Honey Board says is on track to be smaller than last year’s below-par 155 million pounds, is something much more obvious: the weather. In the South, drought and wildfires have prevented flowers from blooming. In the Midwest, a late freeze brought nectar flows in many areas almost to a halt. And in California, the country’s No. 2 honey producer, coastal beekeepers reported that there were almost no flowering plants in July. The bees were fed sugar water to keep them from starving.

Honey bee disappearance

From USGS, executive summary:

Projected changes in future sea ice conditions, if realized, will result in loss of approximately 2/3 of the world’s current polar bear population by the mid 21st century. Because the observed trajectory of Arctic sea ice decline appears to be underestimated by currently available models, this assessment of future polar bear status may be conservative….Ultimately, we projected a 42% loss of optimal polar bear habitat during summer in the polar basin by mid century….In the archipelagic ecoregion [of the Canadian Arctic], polar bears could occur through the end of the century, but in smaller numbers than now….Sea ice conditions would have to be substantially better than even the most conservative [global circulation models] projections to result in qualitatively different outcomes for polar bears in any of the ecoregions.

Alaskan polar bear cubs Read the rest of this entry »

We associate oil with transportation, but there are other uses:

Today, 65 percent of our clothing is made from oil. Virtually all of our inks, paints, dyes, pharmaceuticals, plastics, and hundreds of intermediate chemicals are made from oil. The production of petroleum based plastics alone has expanded by more than 400 percent in the last two decades, to 30 million tons in 1990. Plastics are replacing glass, metals and paper in an ever expanding variety of products.

World Liquids Consumption by Sector — Energy Information Administration predicts about a quarter of the increase in oil consumption between 2004 and 2030 will be used for chemical and petrochemical processes. (Two thirds of the increase will be for transportation.)

I begin the discussion of biofuels this way to show competing interests for land and water: food, forage and fiber; ecosystem services (eg, rain, fish, and insects); transportation fuels and non-transportation substitutions for oil products. I don’t know the greenhouse gas, land use, or water implications of providing these to a population 40% larger in 2050, and perhaps 3 times as rich. Additionally, Green Chemistry is likely to either reduce or increase impact on water and land use — I don’t know (if you do, please leave a comment!)

Sometimes discussions of land and water use in the future sound like a large family deciding what to do with the $100 in the bank, without consulting other members. It would be useful to know how much extra land, for example, will be needed to feed a larger world population. Land not yet farmed tends to be less productive than farms already in use, and many places in the world, land is being degraded. On the other hand, transgenic crops will increase the yield, particularly on degraded land.

RESPONDING TO THE GLOBAL CLIMATE CRISIS (pdf): A Minute Approved by Pacific Yearly Meeting [of the Religious Society of Friends], August 1, 2007

Friends have come to realize that caring for the Earth is a true spiritual concern. In the current Faith and Practice, we are asked to “live according to principles of right relationship and right action within the larger whole. Be aware of the influence humans have on the health and viability of life on earth.” Throughout the Pacific Yearly Meeting, a growing number of individuals and meetings have taken specific steps to raise awareness and alter behavior in these regards.

We now are facing global climate change, a phenomenon no longer seriously in doubt within the scientific community. As a result of choices we have made, the Earth is growing ever hotter, exacerbating weather extremes, habitat destruction, species extinction, and the dislocation of human lives. We recognize that resource scarcity brings greatest risk to the most vulnerable people. It can also aggravate the conditions for war.

These changes, we can no longer escape entirely. Yet some of the harm may be avoided if we act responsibly soon. In the face of these awesome challenges, we turn away from either apathy or despair toward way opening in the Light. We acknowledge the need to awaken to our sacred connection to life on this Earth.

We call for Friends to examine and decrease our individual impacts, where possible, so that Earth’s resources are sustained or replenished. Such commitment will likely entail major adjustments in our purchases, diets, transportation, and livelihoods.

While many individual Friends have progressed toward a more sustainable lifestyle, we must now move toward a corporate witness in our meetings, joining with and helping each other and also like-minded groups in our common concerns.

We ask all to stay continually informed about this evolving planetary crisis to discern future actions that will become needed. We appeal to all Friends to make this a standing priority in our families, meetings, and communities.

We ask monthly meetings in the coming year to discuss and discern this minute in terms of their appropriate witness and action and for input at the annual gathering of the Pacific Yearly Meeting in 2008.

We submit the actions below, ones implemented in various meetings within PYM, to exemplify some possible first steps in creating a sustainable way of life on a healthier planet:

*Engaging in collective discernment in our meetings to understand and reduce human contribution to climate change, allowing Spirit to work among us.
*Reducing meeting-wide, personal greenhouse gases at least 10% in the coming year through decreased driving, flying, and home energy use, and using efficient alternatives, for those able to do so.
*Being a resource, encouraging, and learning from others to reduce our contribution to global warming.
*Networking among meetings and other like-minded groups, both religious and secular, to share resources and expertise.
*Laboring with those shaping public opinion and policy. From local to state, national, and international levels, advocating measures to support Earthcare and lessen the occasion for war.
*Through personal participation and public policy, working to promote environmental justice and assist the most vulnerable.

Which has lower greenhouse gas emissions: burning oil or substituting biofuels? It depends in part on what the land might be used for otherwise, but generally it’s the oil, according to an analysis (subscription needed) in the August 17 Science.

Various options for a 30-year period were analyzed. Biofuels can be supplied by land-inefficient methods: sugar cane, sugar beet, or corn to ethanol, for example. Cellulosic biofuels, not yet commercially competitive, use much less land because they use almost all of the plant above the soil. How do these methods compare?

Righelato and Spracklen compared avoided emissions for various crops (sugar cane, wheat, sugar beet, and maize to ethanol, and rapeseed and woody biomass to diesel), and effect of land-use choices on four biomes (tropical and temperate cropland and forest). Afforestration of the same land over 30 years sequesters much greater quantities of carbon, two to nine times as much. The exception was woody biomass in temperate zones, which had comparable benefits.

Whether we use oil or biofuels, improving fuel economy is a must, as is finding ways to get us out of cars and airplanes, experts on both sides of the issue agree.

I will post soon on cellulosic biofuels. If I see a response to this analysis, I’ll post it.

But all but the politicians and farmers agree that

ethanol from corn

and from

sugar cane

cannot reduce greenhouse gas emissions significantly in an environmentally friendly manner.

Lianas have been increasing in the rainforest, possibly due to increasing carbon dioxide levels. Lianas are parasites, increasing tree mortality and decreasing the amount of carbon stored. Climate change is also altering rainforest ecosystems.

When the climate changes, naturally or not, species move. It is already known that species are moving at different speeds, that ecosystems are not traveling together. New reports indicate that the ecosystems of the future may not simply be the loss of high latitude and altitude ecosystems, and their replacement by other ecosystems; these may look very different in 2100.

The May 11 Science (subscription required) describes no-analog ecosystems, such as forests of spruce, sedge, oak, ash, and hophornbeam, that once existed but do not today — there is no analog today. A sizable percentage of the Earth may be covered by these no-analog ecosystems in 2100.

First, much of the Earth will have combinations of summer and winter temperatures and precipitation patterns that we don’t see anywhere today. The tropics and subtropics are most likely to see these novel climates. On top of that, climates we do recognize will require too much travel by plant species to end up with today’s distribution. Connecting reserves to facilitate species shift won’t be enough.

Limiting the analysis to four variables — summer and winter mean temperature and precipitation — and two scenarios (B1, or low, and A2, or high) produced dramatic changes:

[B]y 2100, depending on which climate scenario and model they use, 4% to 39% of the world’s land area will experience combinations of climate variables that do not currently exist anywhere on the globe. Areas with these novel climates are likely to develop no-analog ecosystems.

A 2005 study included more variables, such as soil type, and found more profound changes.

Assuming that ecosystems can migrate at most 500 km, 300 miles, in a century, the recent study found 14 – 85% of the Earth will be covered by no-analog ecosystems.

A number of variables, such as extremes in temperature and fire frequency, were ignored; we can assume estimates are conservative.

The prospect of novel climates has people rethinking traditional goals such as maintaining native ecosystems. “That’s probably going to be impossible,” says Nathan Stephenson, a research ecologist at the USGS Western Ecological Research Center in Three Rivers, California. “But what you can still do, even if you can’t maintain native communities, is potentially maintain regional biodiversity and ecosystem functions.”

This too will be challenging.

Also in the June 29 Science, an article looks at Ethiopian research into more environmentally acceptable solvents to replace petroleum-based ones, in a country without oil. Ethiopia does have a few advantages:

intense sunlight, unique plant species, and enthusiastic young people

A collaboration was born when two researchers met: Martyn Poliakoff (left), from Nottingham, was on holiday in Ethiopia and Nigst Asfaw (right), a lecturer at Addis Ababa University, was looking for a research theme.

Science in Africa

A few years ago, Science and Nature magazines talked about scientific cooperation between the first and third world. Later, the talk morphed to letting third world scientists have more say in topics chosen.

Now Mohamed Hassan, head of TWAS (Academy of Sciences for the Developing World) has authored an editorial in the June 29 Science describing shifts in African investments in science and technology in Africa.

Rwanda is now spending 1.6% of its GDP, and wants to increase this to 3% within 5 years.

Nigeria plans a national science foundation.

Uganda and Zambia, with loans from the World Bank and African Development fund, will fund research and postgraduate students.

South Africa woman of the year 2004, science and technology category

South-south cooperation has helped this to occur. Brazil, China and India have increased their own science programs, and are now helping fund research in Africa. China has invested $5 billion in Development Fund for Africa to help countries meet the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. Brazil supports science and technology programs in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in (Portuguese-speaking) Mozambique and Angola. India and Brazil are (surprise!) working on biofuels projects with Africans.

international journal covering all African waters

See Hassan’s plenary presentation to the 2007 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Also check out the Africa Science blog.

African countries cannot afford political interference in science (nor can any of us). Perhaps 900 South Africans die daily from AIDS-related illnesses.

Deputy Health Minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge was fired by President Mbeki because she was not a good team player with someone who advocates treating AIDS with garlic.

Packages from relief helicopters

I haven’t posted on the recent flooding in Asia in part because I was out of town when the floods started, in part because of the enormous humanitarian disaster. It’s easier emotionally to focus on a few coal miners than the millions. A larger part though is the fear that this is their future.

Wading through floodwaters Health, food, and agriculture are concerns.

As of today, more than 2,000 are dead, and more than 30 million have lost homes or/and livelihoods. That is 10% of the US population.

There have been costlier floods. The Yellow River in China flooded in 1931, killing hundreds of thousands or millions. During the 20th century, many millions of Chinese died from floods.

Floods have killed for years. In the Netherlands in 1228, 100,000 died after dykes broke.

Bangladesh, which will see increasing problems over the next few decades, suffered major floods in 1970 (200 – 500,000 dead) and 1991 (more than 100,000 dead).

In North Korea between 1995 and 1998, millions died from famine and floods. In the recent floods in North Korea, good agricultural land was affected, and crops will be lost. It isn’t just those who die immediately from the floods, but crops that are destroyed.

From IPCC, 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change:

Since 1950, the number of heat waves has increased and widespread increases have occurred in the numbers of warm nights. The extent of regions affected by droughts has also increased as precipitation over land has marginally decreased while evaporation has increased due to warmer conditions. Generally, numbers of heavy daily precipitation events that lead to flooding have increased, but not everywhere. Tropical storm and hurricane frequencies vary considerably from year to year, but evidence suggests substantial increases in intensity and duration since the 1970s. In the extratropics, variations in tracks and intensity of storms reflect variations in major features of the atmospheric circulation, such as the North Atlantic Oscillation.

Will it get worse?

[T]he type, frequency and intensity of extreme events are expected to change as Earth’s climate changes, and these changes could occur even with relatively small mean climate changes…Along with the risk of drying, there is an increased chance of intense precipitation and flooding due to the greater water-holding capacity of a warmer atmosphere. This has already been observed and is projected to continue because in a warmer world, precipitation tends to be concentrated into more intense events, with longer periods of little precipitation in between. Therefore, intense and heavy downpours would be interspersed with longer relatively dry periods…

In particular, over [Northern Hemisphere] land, an increase in the likelihood of very wet winters is projected over much of central and northern Europe due to the increase in intense precipitation during storm events, suggesting an increased chance of flooding over Europe and other mid-latitude regions due to more intense rainfall and snowfall events producing more runoff. Similar results
apply for summer precipitation, with implications for more flooding in the Asian monsoon region and other tropical areas. The increased risk of floods in a number of major river basins in a future warmer climate has been related to an increase in river discharge with an increased risk of future intense storm-related precipitation events and flooding. Some of these changes would be extensions of trends already underway.

Pillars is the walls of coal you leave
between rooms while you working
the rooms Boss had me explain it
to the Big Boss come down from Boston
on the train to lay eyes on things.
Boss didn’t call me by my name,

just holler, Come on over here, son.
Bragged how big I is, how strong
a colored boy get when he shovel and haul.
Didn’t ask me how my eye got gone?
coal shot out when I was pillar-drawing.
Didn’t ask my name, neither one.

I played along. Yessir, I told them,
them pillars is coal, they can get sold.
We come back in when the rooms is all mined
and pull them down, we don’t leave nothing
behind. I’ve knowed three men’s died that way,
nothing left of them but their names

roof don’t hold too long without no walls.
Bosses begin to edge back toward the hall.
I stood in their way. With my right hand
I pressed one pillar, the other with my left.
I explained To the mountain we all the same.
I pressed harder, and I told them my name.

I found this poem at Of Appalachia and Coal Miners: in memory of those killed in coal mining accidents in January, 2006. Let us hope that the coal miners in Utah do better.

What is your favorite coal mining poem?

A paper I wrote for Friends Committee on (CA) Legislation, California in a Changing Climate, is posted at their site.

Comments welcome (here, or for the committee).

FCL

Ozone in the stratosphere is critical, absorbing enough ultraviolet light to allow land-based life to exist. Ozone-destroying chemicals are greenhouse gases as well, giving us another reason to limit their use.

Ozone is the main ingredient in smog.

Tropospheric ozone is more of a problem. In the US alone, according to Bell, et al, the short-term effects of ground-level ozone kills 4,000 Americans annually.

…a 10-ppb increase in daily ozone would correspond to an additional 319 annual premature deaths for New York City and 3,767 premature deaths annually for the 95 urban communities, based on mortality data from 2000. This value is probably an underestimate of the total mortality burden from such an increase in ozone because it accounts for only the short-term effects.

Fossil fuels and ozone have other health effects as well.

Ozone is also a contributor to changing our climate:

Climate Forcings — notice that the decrease in stratospheric ozone is actually cooling the Earth slightly, while the increase in ground-level ozone is warming the Earth. The forcing from ozone is about 20 – 25% as much as carbon dioxide (though the error bars for ozone show the contribution could be much greater).

A new report in Nature indicates that the indirect effects of ozone on climate change may be more significant than direct effects. Some plants react to increased ozone with stomatal closure, limiting plant exposure. This also limits carbon fertilization — carbon uptake.

We suggest that the resulting indirect radiative forcing by ozone effects on plants could contribute more to global warming than the direct radiative forcing due to tropospheric ozone increases.

As the temperature increases, and fossil fuels (and biomass) continue to be used, ozone levels are expected to rise, with consequent effects on human and ecosystem health, and climate change.

For more details, see the RealClimate post.

The European Union is advocating new rules for airlines:

In response, the European Union proposed rules that would require airlines serving domestic routes to enter into an emissions-trading scheme by 2011. Carriers flying to and from Europe, including U.S. airlines, would have to enter the system by the following year. The plan is based on one already in operation for other European industries that buy and sell credits to emit certain amounts of carbon dioxide.

While today

Boeing expects the number of commercial jetliners to nearly double, to 36,420, in the next 20 years. The Federal Aviation Administration expects 1.2 billion passengers a year to travel on U.S. carriers by 2020, up from 741 million last year.

By 2050, the industry is expected to contribute anywhere from 6 to 10 percent of the gases and particles tied to global warming, up from about 3 percent today, said Michael J. Prather, a professor at the University of California at Irvine and lead author of a 1999 report on aviation’s role in global warming [Aviation and the Global Atmosphere] for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Let’s not forget Lear jets and other private airplanes.

I wonder what is happening to the proposal for a fuel tax on air travel? Can someone help?

GHG emitting and noisy too

Travel by train?

Some consider travel by train more enjoyable.

An old MIT report on air traffic delays, will be updated soon:

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology did a study several years ago and found that when missed connections and flight cancellations are factored in, the average wait was two-thirds longer than the official statistic.

They also determined that as planes become more crowded – and jets have never been as jammed as they are today – the delays grow much longer because it becomes harder to find a seat on a later flight.

The MIT researchers are updating their study now. But with domestic flights running 85 to 90 percent full, meaning that virtually all planes on desirable routes are full, Cynthia Barnhart, an MIT professor who studies transportation systems, has a pretty good idea of what the new research will show when it is completed this autumn: “There will be severe increases in delays,” she said.

About 32 percent of domestic passengers connect from one flight to another to reach their destination, according to Transportation Department data analyzed by Back Aviation Solutions, a consulting firm.

LA smog

An LA Times editorial, No to nukes, came out strongly in favor of building thousands of coal power plants:

On average, coal plants operate at 30% efficiency worldwide, but newer plants operate at 46%. If the world average could be raised to 42%, it would save the same amount of carbon as building 800 nuclear plants.

(Coal power plants tend to be smaller.) Strong support was also made for natural gas:

One fast-growing technology allows commercial buildings or complexes, such as schools, hospitals, hotels or offices, to generate their own electricity and hot water with micro-turbines fueled by natural gas or even biofuel, much more efficiently than utilities can do it and with far lower emissions.

The assertions aren’t true. It is true that increasing use of natural gas would require increasing imports of natural gas.

California can’t even use the coal power plants, as this Times article explains:

The California Energy Commission … imposed new rules that effectively forbid the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and all other municipal utilities in the state from signing new contracts with coal-fired power plants.

So where will we get our electricity from? Well, the LA Times omits that detail. Wind is not an important resource in CA. We are already highly dependent on natural gas — how many liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals would CA need, if we eschew nuclear power? It is unlikely that hydro will become increasingly more important, given assumptions that we have moved into a drought. California’s population is expected to increase by 20 – 30% in the next two decades, our contracts with the current coal power sources (21% of CA electricity) can’t be renewed. Biomass is probably not an important source of electricity for a state with our air pollution laws, and besides, the plan is to use it for biofuels.

Should Fresno build plants to produce electricity from biomass (except we’ve planned to use it for our fuel) or even more natural gas?

Downwind from Fresno

Nope, not well thought out.

There are a number of mistakes in the article, as well as statements that are true but irrelevant.

I just spent 9 days visiting St. Paul. Bicycling appears to be the best way to see the city.

I visited Minnehaha Falls

Minnehaha Falls

bicycling along the Mississippi River to get there.

Stone Bridge over the Mississippi

Lots of children riding bicycles, in part because it’s flatter than in Berkeley. Much flatter. My favorite young riders were two urchins or pre-urchins pumping along at a pretty good rate on bicycles with training wheels. Their father skated between them, scooting them over to the right when other bicycles came along.

Unlike many of the children and adults I saw on bicycles, these were properly fitted with helmets.

Bicycle helmets — proper usage

I haven’t been blogging much as I prepared for a workshop at Friends General Conference (Changing Climate Changing Selves) along with various interest groups. Maybe I’ll see you in River Falls?

After, I will be relaxing in St. Paul, MN. Hopefully I’ll get time to blog there, hopefully I’ll get time to relax and see the city and enjoy conversations with Friends.

Spoon and Cherry from Minneapolis Sculpture Garden

The US National Academy of Sciences issued a report Federal Research Needed to Determine Size of U.S. Coal Reserves and Meet Increasing Challenges in Mining Safety, Environmental Protection. From the press release:

Over half the nation’s electricity is currently generated by burning coal, but future levels of coal use will be largely determined by the timing and stringency of regulations to control carbon emissions, the report says. Coal use over the next 10 to 15 years — until about 2020 — could climb as high as 25 percent above 2004 levels, or drop as much as 15 percent below them, depending on environmental policies and economic conditions. By 2030, the uncertainty increases even more, the report says; coal use could range from about 70 percent above current levels to 50 percent below them.

Why increase funding by $10 million/year if coal use in the US might drop?

Health dangers to coal miners increase as they begin mining deeper seams, and seams over or under previously mined areas. Environmental protection and CO2 management require better (and different) plant operation. It is important to mitigate disturbances to groundwater and surface water, and minimize the risk of ground collapse over abandoned mines.

Interestingly, NAS cannot confirm (or refute) that the US has 250 years of coal at current rates of use [or about a century’s worth if coal supplies our fuel as well as our power. One reason is that no one wants to invest money in finding more coal if there is more than enough for any plant built today.]

You can read the full report online.

Added note: If coal power is reduced 50% by 2030, that still means we are building new coal power plants. This kind of plant is built to last about 30-some years, and most US plants are over 30 years old.

I’m posting a question on distributed power — do I understand it?

Amory Lovins extols distributed power; see Nobel prize winner debates future of nuclear power. (Note: Dr. Burton Richter, winner of the 1976 Nobel Prize in physics, took the pro-position.) Sometimes I think that’s the problem that Lovins wants to solve, not climate change, not the other incredible health and environmental damages of the energy we use. The micropower Lovins mentions? Much of the 100 GW in coal power China installed was micropower.

What do people mean when they talk about distributed power? Are they picturing Alaskan villages far from the grid using wind, solar, and diesel?

If wind power is to produce more than 10 – 20% of US electricity, we will need to schlep wind power all over the US — presumably the wind is blowing somewhere, even if not here. We could use compressed air energy storage but it requires inefficient natural gas to get the electricity out of storage.

Using wind power requires huge grid upgrade, and connecting parts of the US that are not now connected. Despite Lovins contention that we would suffer grid failure less frequently, wouldn’t more connections and more use of wind power lead to more frequent grid failure?

Germany expands the grid.

There are other arguments against distributed grid — as weather varies around the US, it is sometimes cheaper and produces lower GHG emissions to schlep electricity north today and south in a few months.

I’m writing this, though, to make sure that I understand the arguments in favor of distributed power, so please explain!

Finally, a pretty accurate online calculator from (University of California) Berkeley Institute of the Environment.

Answers appear in graph form, easier to read. You can even get an idea how much emissions you are responsible for from your fish and red meat consumption.

This is new, so there are still a couple of bugs.

Someone is looking for reading material, suggested length 10 pages, but let us know any suggestions. Target audience: non-technical. Any ideas out there?