Northwest Passage Opens – Life is Unfair

Byoliveridley

While developing countries face devastating droughts, floods and general mayhem due to climate change, it appears that melting ice in the Arctic could expose all kinds of mineral resources, including more oil to accelerate global warming, to the very countries, the US, Canada and Northern Europe that caused the bulk of the problem.

Arctic ice melt opens Northwest Passage – Yahoo! News

The European Space Agency said nearly 200 satellite photos this month taken together showed an ice-free passage along northern Canada, Alaska and Greenland, and ice retreating to its lowest level since such images were first taken in 1978.

The waters are exposing unexplored resources, and vessels could trim thousands of miles from Europe to Asia by bypassing the Panama Canal. The seasonal ebb and flow of ice levels has already opened up a slim summer window for ships.

Well, I have nothing more to say…

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  • GE Plumbs the Depths

    Byoliveridley

    The very excellent htww blog by Andrew Leonard on Salon brought this “clean coal” video to my attention. It is a year old, but new to us!

    Do watch. In a one minute commercial, GE manages to greenwash on clean coal, be incredibly sexist, and, in an act that screams a giant F@#$ You to all involved, use as a soundtrack, a song about the misery of coal mining and the hardship faced by miners. I thought it was a parody, it had to be, apparently, NOT!

    Sixteen Tons

    Some people say a man is made outta mud
    A poor man’s made outta muscle and blood
    Muscle and blood and skin and bones
    A mind that’s a-weak and a back that’s strong

    You load sixteen tons, what do you get
    Another day older and deeper in debt
    Saint Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go
    I owe my soul to the company store

    I was born one mornin’ when the sun didn’t shine
    I picked up my shovel and I walked to the mine
    I loaded sixteen tons of number nine coal
    And the straw boss said “Well, a-bless my soul”

    You load sixteen tons, what do you get
    Another day older and deeper in debt
    Saint Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go
    I owe my soul to the company store

    I was born one mornin’, it was drizzlin’ rain
    Fightin’ and trouble are my middle name
    I was raised in the canebrake by an ol’ mama lion
    Cain’t no-a high-toned woman make me walk the line

    You load sixteen tons, what do you get
    Another day older and deeper in debt
    Saint Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go
    I owe my soul to the company store

    If you see me comin’, better step aside
    A lotta men didn’t, a lotta men died
    One fist of iron, the other of steel
    If the right one don’t a-get you
    Then the left one will

    You load sixteen tons, what do you get
    Another day older and deeper in debt
    Saint Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go
    I owe my soul to the company store

    Shame on them.

  • Climate Talks Sputter

    Byoliveridley

    China, India and the other developing nations are upset that commitments to provide financial and technological help made during a U.N. conference in Bali, Indonesia, in 2007 have not translated into anything more tangible.

    Mr. Meyer estimated that the United States, Europe and other industrial nations need to come up with $150 billion a year in assistance by 2020 to help develop clean energy technology for developing countries, reduce deforestation that contributes to rising temperatures, and help vulnerable nations adapt to changes attributed to greenhouse gases.

    G-8 Nations Fail to Agree on Climate Change Plan – NYTimes.com

    Yes, it is true, North America and Europe are responsible for a bulk of the greenhouse gas emissions currently in the atmosphere and need to do the bulk of the work. But it would also behoove India and China to make the right noises. There is no sense that we’re in this together, that we will all be affected, and India and China even more so

    Leadership is lacking, the US needs to take a first big step and start things of.

    Update

    The G8 has agreed to sign on to a limit on warming of 2°C rise in global temperature. Well, how do you get there without reducing CO2 in the atmosphere, which we apparently can’t agree to do? It’s like saying you need to go a 100km more on a road trip, but refusing to agree to fill gas.

    There is a chicken and egg problem here. The famously resistant to change US system is working through a climate bill. The world is waiting to see what will happen, but the version of the bill passed by Congress is not strong enough to avert a 2°C rise unless China and India are as aggressive and there is massive technological shift away from fossil fuels. The US system is waiting for signals from the world, reasoning they don’t want to act first and unilaterally. It’s all nice game theory for people watching from the sidelines, but life’s a little more serious…

  • The England Environment Minister Blogs

    Byoliveridley

    http://www.davidmiliband.defra.gov.uk/blogs/ministerial_blog/default.aspx

    He seems to write it himself, has comments and all, some of which aren’t very friendly. One of his posts talks about a Carbon ration card, meaning everyone starts off with a set of carbon credits, which you can either use, or sell back to the trading bank so that people who use more carbon can buy more.

    The principle is simple: there would be a decision about the nation’s
    annual level of carbon emissions, permits/quotas for that level would be issued on a per capital basis (probably for personal food, household energy and travel emissions), and those who spent under the wuota would be able to sell to those who spend above.

    Well put, and in classic blog style, no spellcheck!

    Meanwhile, in the US, we have the chair of the powerful Senate Committee on Environmental and Public Works and well known Global Warming denier.

    But coolness and hipness aside, it is refreshing for a minister (secretary, whatever you call them) to communicate in this fashion and be accepting of comments and criticism. We need a few more of these on the other side of the Atlantic (no,  not Antarctica, look West).

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    Killer nets reinstated

    Byoliveridley

    Council Decisions: March 2006

    Drift Gillnet Management

    The Council adopted a recommendation to NMFS to authorize an exempted fishing permit (EFP) that would allow drift gillnet fishing in the current August 15-November 15 closed area. The EFP fishery would be governed by several requirements for all vessels, including, to carry an observer; to limit total fishing effort in the EFP fishery to 300 sets; to immediately cease the EFP fishery if, and when, two leatherback sea turtles were encountered by the fishing gear; and to immediately cease the EFP fishery if one mortality or serious injury occurred to any of the following marine mammals: short-finned pilot whale, sperm whale, fin whale, gray whale, humpback whale, or minke whale.

    And, with that, starts the rather egregious practice of drift gillnet fishing. The restrictions seem fairly tight, an observer on every boat, and end to the fishery after two incidences of capture. There is definitely more than meets the eye here, I don’t know what. Drift gillnet fishing is well documented to cause turtle catch, this from the 1998 Fishery Bulletin for 1990-1995

    In the drift gillnet fishery, seven out of 387 mammals observed entangled were released alive. In the set gillnet fishery, five out of 1,263 mammals observed entangled were released alive. Estimates of incidental kill are presented along with estimates of entanglement for species that were observed to be released alive. For the period under consideration, the estimated mortality for the drift gillnet fishery was over 450 marine mammals each year. A total of 20 turtles and 3 seabirds were observed entangled during the entire period. The most frequently entangled species in this fishery were common dolphins, Delphinus spp., and northern elephant seals, Mirounga angustirostris. Estimated cetacean mortality in the driftnet fishery decreased from 650 in 1991 to 417 in 1995; pinniped mortality decreased from 173 in 1991 to 116 in 1995. Estimated cetacean mortality in the set gillnet fishery ranged from a high of 38 in 1991 to a low 14 in 1993; pinniped mortality rose to a high of 4,777 in 1992 and then decreased to 1,016 in 1995. We postulate that there has been a decline in the number of pinnipeds and cetaceans in the setnet fishery owing to area closure. No similar proposal can be made for the driftnet fishery. The most frequently entangled mammals in the setnet fishery were California sea lions, Zalophus californianus, and harbor seals, Phoca vitulina. Six turtles and 1,018 seabirds were estimated entangled in this fishery during the NMFS Observer Program from July 1990 to December 1995.

    So what’s the deal, this thing caught 20 turtles in 5 years, so it is going to catch turtles, no doubt about it. Anyone who does not get what the death of one adult sea turtle means read this. Sea turtles are wonderfully fragile animals given their size, they take long to mature sexually, they do not breed all that much and less than 1% of turtle hatchlings survive to adulthood. Leatherbacks are highly endangered.

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  • Turning CO2 into plastic?

    Byoliveridley

    Interesting stuff…

    Sifting the Garbage for a Green Polymer – New York Times

    It was here that Dr. Coates discovered the catalyst needed to turn CO2 into a polymer.

    With Scott Allen, a former graduate student, Dr. Coates has started a company called Novomer, which has partnered with several companies, including Kodak, on joint projects. Novomer has received money from the Department of Energy, New York State and the National Science Foundation. Dr. Coates imagines CO2 being diverted from factory emissions into an adjacent facility and turned into plastic.

    Anthropogenic CO2 emissions = 7 Giga ton per year. So it will take a lot of plastics to take care of that. The promise of biopolymers is that they reduce the need for fossil fuels, and are biodegradable.

    Seems to be another case where some funding and regulatory nudging away from the petroleum plastics would really help.

  • |

    Senate 1, Plutocrats 2

    Byoliveridley

    It was a close game. But in the end, the plutocrats prevailed on energy legislation. Yes, fuel economy will go up some, but the push towards renewable energy will have to wait. Even on fuel economy standards, the requirement to incrementally increase standards every year after  getting to 35 mpg by 2020 was dropped.

    Well, given the notoriously undemocratic nature of the US senate, progress will be slow.
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    The Senate passed a broad energy bill late Thursday that would, among other things, require the first big increase in fuel mileage requirements for passenger cars in more than two decades. The vote, 65 to 27, was a major defeat for car manufacturers, which had fought for a much smaller increase in fuel economy standards and is expected to keep fighting as the House takes up the issue. But Senate Democrats also fell short of their own goals. In a victory for the oil industry, Republican lawmakers successfully blocked a crucial component of the Democratic plan that would have raised taxes on oil companies by about $32 billion and used the money on tax breaks for wind power, solar power, ethanol and other renewable fuels. Republicans also blocked a provision of the legislation that would have required electric utilities to greatly increase the share of power they get from renewable sources of energy. As a result, Senate Democrats had to settle for a bill that calls for a vast expansion of renewable fuels over the next decade — to 36 billion gallons a year of alternatives to gasoline — but does little to actually promote those fuels through tax breaks or other subsidies. The combination of breakthroughs and setbacks highlighted the blocking power of the entrenched industry groups, from oil companies and electric utilities to car manufacturers, that had blanketed Congress in recent days to defend their interests.

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