Global warming wins the Nobel peace price

Byoliveridley October 12, 2007

Well, I guess if Gore had become president of the US, this would not have happened (among other things that would not have happened). On the other hand, the U.S would have conceivably taken a leadership role in the issue (if the senate and congress would have cooperated).

Gore and U.N. Panel Win Peace Prize – New York Times

Former Vice President Al Gore and the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize Friday for their efforts to spread awareness of man-made climate change and lay the foundations for counteracting it.

”I am deeply honored to receive the Nobel Peace Prize,” Gore said. ”We face a true planetary emergency. The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity.”

Gore’s film ”An Inconvenient Truth,” a documentary on global warming, won an Academy Award this year and he had been widely expected to win the prize.

What does this do for climate change? Well, nothing! Unfortunately! Good for the IPCC, though. And, good for Gore. I thought at the beginning of 2007 that this was the year that worldwide perceptions about the threat of global warming would change, Gore’s movie and the IPCC report had a big hand in making that happen.

Why India is a Prominent Global Warming Sceptic

Byoliveridley May 1, 2007

I grew up in Chennai, proudly known as the automotive capital of India and home to Standard Motors. While it makes me very happy to see Chennai back on the automotive map, it also points me to the fact that India needs to be involved in the long-term reduction of heat-trapping emissions. This is not going to help…

BBC NEWS | Business | India eyes 25 million automotive jobs

India’s labour intensive car industry has become a tremendous job creator and as such a crucial driver of economic growth.

Already, some 10 million people are working in factories across India – making cars and motorcycles, tractors and trucks – or in sales and service centres.

And their numbers are set to swell.

By 2016, the automotive industry should have created employment for 25 million people in India, according to government predictions, set out in its Automotive Mission Plan.

I realize that India has a loooooooooooooong way to go before it catches up with the US and the rest of the developed world as far as per capita heat-trapping emissions are concerned. I also admit that infrastructure development, job creation, manufacturing prowess, etc., are critical for India in order to mitigate its soul crushingly large poverty and development issues. But, by putting so much emphasis on conventional car technology, and putting so many more CO2 emitting monsters on the road, India is putting itself in a position of playing the development vs. environment game.

Is it necessary that India and China tread the same path as the U.S and Europe? Does India have to make and use cars that are built using technology developed prior to our knowledge of global warming? The same company that gets cautious praise from the Union of Concerned Scientists for its “leadership” role in global warming will turn around and build factories in India that carry the status quo forward for another 30 years. When you’re starting from the foundation, and you know that the plans provided to you will lead to your house crumbling in 20 years, would you use the plans anyway because your contractor provides you with no alternative? The logical answer seems to be no, but is this process logic driven, or enforced by the existing power structure?

The vehicle industry is entrenched in the US and therefore, resistant to change. It is understandable, not optimal, not desirable, shortsighted, etc., but understandable. Change requires effort, and a lot of the time, the effort is motivated by external factors, such as strict regulation. Without these external factors, it is very easy to keep chugging along merrily.

But, does India have to make the same mistakes? Does India have a choice here? I am afraid not. The pressure to build infrastructure quickly leads India to seek foreign investment and the investment will only come in the way of companies like Ford. And Ford will do exactly what it needs to do to make money in the short term (apparently, they’re not very good at that either!).

What is the answer? The developed countries have to pass legislation that pretty much forces the car companies’ hand. Strict increases in fuel economy standards, tightening of loopholes, and strict enforcement are all required. As this UCS report shows, fuel efficiency improvements of up to 40% are possible using run of the mill technology (as in, no hybrids, no electrics, nothing). But this is not sufficient. While the US market is focused enough that the highest regulation (California) pretty much drives the market, will car companies simply make a set of third world cars and a set of first world cars?

There’s clearly another piece to the puzzle, encouraging technology transfer of the most carbon efficient technologies to emerging markets so that they can build infrastructure correctly, using current knowledge instead of following the only blueprint currently available to them. Yes, this hits upon intellectual property issues at times, but when your village is being submerged by the sea, intellectual property needs to take a back seat. This technology transfer needs to happen either through incentives (tax breaks, non-profit/UN funding), or disincentives (carbon taxes, etc.). the Kyoto Protocol does have some technology transfer programs built in, but without the participation of the US, the protocol is not going to work.

Do I see any of this happening? Not really, so I guess we’re stuck with recycled global warming denialism like this one from one of India’s prominent columnists.

Almost as soon as the Kyoto Protocol on global warming came into effect on February 15, Kashmir suffered the highest snowfall in three decades with over 150 killed, and Mumbai recorded the lowest temperature in 40 years. Had temperatures been the highest for decades, newspapers would have declared this was proof of global warming. But whenever temperatures drop, the press keeps quiet.

Yes, the country that produces great intellectuals has come down to this. But, this is the prevailing wind in India. As a country, it has swallowed the American line on development being at odds with the environment. As a country, it is poised to greatly increase its heat-trapping emissions and fight vigorously, any efforts to restrict its emissions. India is right in most ways, its per capita energy consumption is miniscule. It already only uses half the energy per dollar of GDP that the US uses (of course, this is at the expense of quality of life for millions). So, any attempts at pointing fingers at China and India are irresponsible. But, that is the past. Looking forward, every country needs to use the most efficient technologies possible, and this Ford factory driven development model ain’t gonna work.

I leave you with the energy intensity chart…

Environment | Politics

Split court rules against Bush on greenhouse gases – CNN.com

Byoliveridley April 2, 2007

Interesting, see here for background…. So, the Supreme Court has ruled that CO2 is a pollutant, good for them.

Split court rules against Bush on greenhouse gases – CNN.com

The Supreme Court ordered the federal government on Monday to take a fresh look at regulating carbon dioxide emissions from cars, a rebuke to Bush administration policy on global warming.

In a 5-4 decision, the court said the Clean Air Act gives the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to regulate the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from cars.

Greenhouse gases are air pollutants under the landmark environmental law, Justice John Paul Stevens said in his majority opinion.

The court’s four conservative justices — Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas — dissented.

Kennedy, swung left on this one! I stand by my original asseesment, just regulating cars using the clean air act is inadequate, but the important matter resolved here is that CO2 is a pollutant, and this will, I hope, provide precedent in cases to come.

Environment | Health

Pet Poisonings – A chemistry detective story

Byoliveridley April 20, 2007

Melamine in pet food may not be accidental – USATODAY.com

A nitrogen-rich chemical used to make plastic and sometimes as a fertilizer may have been deliberately added to an ingredient in pet food that has sickened and killed cats and dogs across the country, public and private officials say. A leading theory is that it was added to fake higher protein levels.

Melamine has been found in wheat gluten, rice protein concentrate and, in South Africa, corn gluten, all imported from China, and all meant for use in pet food, the Food and Drug Administration confirmed Thursday.

“It adds to the theory when you see other products that are labeled as protein supplements, in this case rice protein, and in South Africa corn gluten and in the previous case wheat gluten,” said Stephen Sundlof, FDA chief veterinarian. “That melamine was found in all three of those, it would certainly lend credibility to the theory that this was intentional.”

Interesting, apparently, melamine was added to increase the nitrogen content of the food so it would show up as protein in the most common protein test, which only looks for nitrogen. When I am not working, I guess I will look up the test details.

I wonder if this is only the tip of the iceberg? What other techniques do food manufacturers use to fake it? Growing up, food adulteraion was a serious problem in India, and still continues to be an issue in the third world.

The Oil Drum takes down cellulosic ethanol

Byoliveridley March 7, 2006

A guest poster at the oil drum throws a little water over cellulosic ethanol (pouring a little water over scotch – good, over raging hype machines, even better).

What’s the moral in all of this? If corn ethanol is marginal on an energy returned on energy invested (EROEI) basis, it is very difficult to argue that biomass grown to make ethanol will be any better. To be blunt, if there are concentrated stocks of waste biomass in place, such as at lumber mills, then biomass ethanol probably makes sense. Otherwise, it appears to be more or less equivalent to corn based ethanol – in other words, a wash.

Overall, it’s a good take down. I am always leery about believing farm/agriculture promises because there’s way too much subsidy money involved for people not to have a vested interest in promoting some new plant or the other. Unfortunately, I know nothing about farming 🙁 , so I can’t judge his assumptions.

Why can’t we just agree to consume less (energy that is, not scotch)

Environment

CNN.com – Caribbean coral suffers record die-off – Mar 31, 2006

Byoliveridley April 2, 2006

More from the global warming drumbeat, which has by now reached tipping point proportions. I was trying a few months back to predict when global warming would become a “story” in this country, something to be reported on, rather than a “debate”, I guessed middle of the year, well, I think it arrived in March with Time and Newsweek covers, and personally with at least two friends asking me about it. News coverage of climate change has changed completely in the last few months as observations catch up with the modeling, as they do most of the time. But people like to see proof, not model simulations which can always be explained away, well, here’s more proof…

CNN.com – Caribbean coral suffers record die-off – Mar 31, 2006
The Caribbean is actually better off than areas of the Indian and Pacific ocean where mortality rates — mostly from warming waters — have been in the 90 percent range in past years, said Tom Goreau of the Global Coral Reef Alliance. Goreau called what’s happening worldwide “an underwater holocaust.”

And with global warming, scientists are pessimistic about the future of coral reefs.

“The prognosis is not good,” said biochemistry professor M. James Crabbe of the University of Luton near London. In early April, he will investigate coral reef mortality in Jamaica. “If you want to see a coral reef, go now, because they just won’t survive in their current state.”

For the Caribbean, it all started with hot sea temperatures, first in Panama in the spring and early summer, and it got worse from there.

New NOAA sea surface temperature figures show the sustained heating in the Caribbean last summer and fall was by far the worst in 21 years of satellite monitoring, Eakin said.

“The 2005 event is bigger than all the previous 20 years combined,” he said.

What happened in the Caribbean would be the equivalent of every city in the United States recording a record high temperature at the same time, Eakin said. And it remained hot for weeks, even months, stressing the coral.

Development | Environment | Food | South Asia

Pesticide Exposure and India's green revolution

Byoliveridley October 2, 2007

Pesticide exposure in Punjab and Haryana is out of control. When I was growing up, the Green Revolution was idolized and idealized to degree that in hindsight seems a little excessive. But back then, this octupling of wheat and rice yields in Punjab and Haryana catalyzed the transformation of India from a country mired in famine and food shortages to one that occasionally runs out of room to store excess food. So, this story (courtesy of 3QD) caught my attention.

Green.view | Chemical generation | Economist.com:

IF INDIAN newspaper reports are to be believed, the children of Punjab are in the throes of a grey revolution. Even those as young as ten are sprouting tufts of white and grey hair. Some are going blind. In Punjabi villages, children and adults rare afflicted by uncommon cancers.

The reason is massive and unregulated use of pesticides and other agricultural chemicals in India’s most intensively farmed state. According to an environmental report by Punjab’s government, the modest-sized state accounts for 17% of India’s total pesticide use. The state’s water, people, animals, milk and agricultural produce are all poisoned with the stuff.

Ignorance is part of the problem. The report includes details of a survey suggesting that nearly one-third of Punjabi farmers were unaware that pesticides come with instructions for use. Half of the farmers ignored these instructions. Three-quarters put empty pesticide containers to domestic uses.

The article concludes by saying that the government is encouraging the use of techniques including organic farming, more crop rotation, etc, and how this is ironically “reversing” the green revolution. But two separate issues are getting mixed up here. The green revolution was not won on excessive use of fertilizers, monoculture, excessive water use, and so on. Instead, the development of new hybrid, high yielding varieties of rice and wheat kick started the revolution. The wholesale adoption of water and input intensive agricultural techniques came along for for the ride with the rest of the revolution.

Hopefully, the Punjab government will not stop at writing reports, but start grassroots education projects with the farmers to encourage sensible farming techniques that take the good parts of the green revolution and leave the bad parts out.

Similar Posts