Collapse, The Monkey Business of Cap and Trade, Mondragon Basque

His Guns, Germs and Steel ended up as a PBS series --

http://www.pbs.org/gunsgermssteel/


Think about James Hansen's newest book when thinking about Jared Diamond, and the previous Blogpost here above on PacifiCAD on Costa's book --

In Storms of My Grandchildren, James Hansen gives us the opportunity to watch a scientist who is sick of silence and compromise…offer up the fruits of four-plus decades of inquiry and ingenuity just in case he might change the course of history.

— L.A. Times

James Hansen is perhaps best known for bringing global warming to the world’s attention in the 1980s, when he first testified before Congress. A member of the National Academy of Sciences, an adjunct professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University and at Columbia’s Earth Institute, and director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, he is frequently called to testify before Congress on climate issues. Dr. Hansen’s background in both space and earth sciences allows a broad perspective on the status and prospects of our home planet. This is his first book.

In Storms of My Grandchildren, Dr. James Hansen—the nation’s leading scientist on climate issues—speaks out for the first time with the full truth about global warming: The planet is hurtling even more rapidly than previously acknowledged to a climatic point of no return.

Although the threat of human-caused climate change is now widely recognized, politicians have failed to connect policy with the science, responding instead with ineffectual remedies dictated by special interests. Hansen shows why President Obama’s solution, cap-and-trade, which Al Gore has signed on to, won’t work; why we must phase out all coal; and why 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a goal we must achieve if our children and grandchildren are to avoid global meltdown and the horrific storms of the book’s title. This urgent manifesto bucks conventional wisdom (including the Kyoto Protocol) and is sure to stir controversy, but Hansen—whose climate predictions have come to pass again and again, beginning in the 1980s when he first warned Congress about global warming—is the single most credible voice on the subject worldwide.

Hansen paints a devastating, all-too-realistic picture of what will happen in the near future, mere years and decades from now, if we follow the course we’re on. But he is also an optimist, showing that there is still time to do what we need to save the planet. Urgent, strong action is needed, and this book will be key in setting the agenda going forward to create a groundswell, a tipping point, to save humanity—and our grandchildren—from a dire fate more imminent than we had supposed.

****************************************************************

So, how do we get these conversations going inside the boardrooms, in the heads of the Murdoch's of the world, the tar sand profiteers, the GE CEOs and VPs, the Obama Administration, the tea bag party honchos? We really have to celebrate some of cultures' successes, but we have to work harder on prepping for a world without ice, with peak resources, etc.

These conversations are difficult, and they end up reverting to some really shallow timelines, shallow responses, and much of the response is tied to making money and watching safety nets fray, burn. Can technology, computer whizzes, and industry and business really lead? These questions are not knee jerk.

******************************************************************


From Grist --

Diamond's newest book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, restores human agency to the picture. Through a grab bag of case studies that range from the Mayan Empire to modern China, Diamond tries to distill a unified theory about why societies fail or succeed. He identifies five factors that contribute to collapse: climate change, hostile neighbors, trade partners (that is, alternative sources of essential goods), environmental problems, and, finally, a society's response to its environmental problems. The first four may or may not prove significant in each society's demise, Diamond claims, but the fifth always does. The salient point, of course, is that a society's response to environmental problems is completely within its control, which is not always true of the other factors. In other words, as his subtitle puts it, a society can "choose to fail."

Collapse by Jared Diamond, Viking Books, 592 pgs., 2005.

Diamond then identifies the 12 environmental problems that are portents of doom: destruction of natural habitats (mainly through deforestation); reduction of wild foods; loss of biodiversity; erosion of soil; depletion of natural resources; pollution of freshwater; maximizing of natural photosynthetic resources; introduction by humans of toxins and alien species; artificially induced climate change; and, finally, overpopulation and its impact.

These issues, which dovetail neatly with the flashpoints of the modern environmental movement, will be familiar enough to readers of Grist. But while the factors that Diamond believes lead societies to collapse may be clear, his definitions of both "society" and "collapse" are less so.

"Collapse" can refer to complete extinction (Pitcairn Island),

 population crash (Easter Island),

resettlement (Vikings),

 civil war (Rwanda),

 anarchy (Somalia, Haiti),

or even just the demise of a political ideology (the disintegration of the Soviet Union).

His definition of "society" is equally vague; he variously uses it to refer to

a settlement (e.g., various Viking communities),

a nation (ranging from Rwanda and Haiti, two of the smaller countries in the world,

to China, one of the largest),

a state (Montana), and an island (Easter).

Each individual example makes sense, but as analogues -- to each other or to the situation in today's globalized world -- they often falter.

*****************************************************

There are small nations examples of how sustainability might be the leading edge for getting into climate disruption, resource extinction and rotten governments. Here is one model cooperative --

Led by The Cleveland Foundation (the nation’s oldest community foundation), the collaborative Cleveland Model has started to close the wealth gap. Its funding comes from the city of Cleveland, banks, and the Evergreen Development Fund—set up by the Cleveland Foundation and anchor institutions to underwrite the co-op businesses.

The Cleveland Model draws upon the experience of the Mondragón Corporation in the Basque Country of Spain, the world’s most successful large-scale cooperative effort. It employs over 100,000 people in an integrated network of more than 120 high-tech, industrial, service, construction, financial, and other cooperatively owned businesses.


Mondragón is now the 7^th largest business in Spain, so it isn’t “a small scale hippie mainstay,” according to Judith Schwartz in Time, but rather “it is huge, hard-nosed, business-wise, and successful.” Last November, the United Steelworkers (USW) and Mondragón Internacional, S.A. announced a partnership framework for establishing manufacturing cooperatives in the US and Canada, integrating collective bargaining principles into the Mondragón worker ownership model of “one worker, one vote”.

"It's the Poverty, the Food and our Education, Stupid." Don't Let them Convince You It's 'The Economy'

Photo of wind turbines -- http://www.flickr.com/photos/andjohan/1022097482/

By Andreas Johannsen. This photo was taken on August 5, 2007 in Refshalevej, Copenhagen, Hovedstaden, DK, using a Nikon D70.

One of these decades, students and parents and just old baby boomers will stand up and demand education become the center of the universe. How many shortages are we going to face in the coming decades, from social workers, psychologists, earth scientists, architects (not software architects, engineers, teachers, doctors? Because of the lazy, mean, greedy men (and women) who put wealth and class divide over everything else? We need public schools to function elegantly, greatly.

You have to hand it to the Space Shuttle program and now another Mars surface joke of a program to launch an SUV (figuratively, compared to the dune buggy Mars rover) on the red planet. Hmmm, cute but expensive and wasted technology, human lives, at the expense of earth scientists. [more on these stories in future blogs]

THINK farming, water, energy on earth. Political and corporate dictatorship. We need to launch great Apollo programs to fight poverty, disease, and ignorance. Here's an interesting galvanizing article coming from Brazil, a hot country on many levels. First the engineering shortage:

A new report, titled ‘Engineering: Issues, Challenges and Opportunities for Development’, is the first international study of the field, with contributions from some 120 experts around the world. It highlights "the critical roles" of engineering in both international and local development.

http://www.truth-out.org/running-out-engineers66481

"One of the reasons for the decline in engineering’s popularity among students is the perception that the subject is boring and hard work, jobs are badly paid considering the responsibilities involved, and engineering has a negative environmental impact, and may be seen as part of the problem rather than the solution," he said.

Educational programmes could instead focus on the uses of engineering in sustainable development, environmental protection and poverty reduction. Such a focus might attract more women and minorities, Marjoram said. There are few female students in engineering programmes at universities across the world. In the West, engineering classes are often more that 80 percent male, according to professionals in the field.

Ahh, now the good news from Brazil, with a new president, a true revolutionary:


Published on Sunday, January 2, 2011 by the McClatchy Newspapers
Dilma Roussef, Brazil's First Female President, Vows War on Poverty
by Diana Renee

BRASILIA, Brazil - Left-wing economist Dilma Rousseff, 63, was inaugurated Saturday as the first female president of Brazil, succeeding her popular mentor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Brazil's new President Dilma Rousseff and her only daughter Paula Rousseff Araujo wave to supporters as they make their way to the Planalto presidential palace in Brasilia, Brazil, Saturday Jan. 1, 2011. Rousseff, a former rebel who was imprisoned and tortured during the nation's 21-year military dictatorship, was sworn in as Brazil's first female president Saturday. (AP Photo/Andre Penner) In her inaugural address in the building that houses the lower house of the Brazilian Congress in the capital, Brasilia, Rousseff vowed that overcoming extreme poverty will be her top priority.

"My government's most obstinate fight will be to eradicate extreme poverty and to create opportunities for all," she said.

Her oath met with applause from 800 invited guests, including more than 20 foreign heads of state and government.

Lula left office with record popularity but could not stay on due to constitutional limits on consecutive presidential terms.

"A significant social mobility happened in President Lula's two mandates. But there is still poverty that shames our country and prevents our full affirmation as a developed people," she said.

In a 45-minute speech that was interrupted by applause on numerous occasions, Rousseff wept when she remembered her past as a member of a leftist guerrilla group and her dead comrades in the fight against the 1964-85 dictatorship in Brazil, during which she was herself imprisoned and suffered torture.

"I devoted all my life to Brazil's cause. I gave up my youth for the dream of a country that was fair and democratic. I withstood the most extreme adversities that were inflicted to all those of us who dared fight arbitrariness," she said.

Read more:

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/01/02-0

Salmon Runs -- National Salmon Month

One of the better indicators of our human “ability” to not only wipe out valuable interlinked ecosystems, but incredible animals and the keystone link they have on species living within their realm, is the salmon. Salmon are emblematic of white dominant culture destroying a species that provided for many hundreds of tribes and millions of people. Salmon represent ancient cultures and incredible forces of our still little known world – oceans. Salmon represent urban and suburban sprawl’s knife edge into our hearts. Salmon represent our Dr. Frankenstein dark side, as if replacing the magnificent wild species with farmed freaks of DNA manipulation will somehow cover up our failure as the “top species” to solve the problems we have created for them.

Overfishing and surmounting changes to rivers and the oceans have given the brother salmon an inhospitable world. King of Fish: The Thousand Year Run of Salmon by David R. Montgomery is a great staring point to understand the salmon’s historical context throughout the centuries. Montgomery gives us an historical look at how first in the United Kingdom, then New England and now the Pacific Northwest the salmon have become imperiled (extinct wild species in the UK and New England). He’s a geologist who sees the evolution of salmon determined by a changing and dynamic landscape. More than 16 Pacific salmon runs have been listed under the Endangered Species Act as in crisis. Two general genera of salmon exist, in the family Salmonidae – Atlantic genus is Salmon ad Pacific salmon belong to Oncorhynchus. There’s an Asian species of Pacific salmon, O. masou. Samo salar is distributed across Europe and eastern North America.

They all begin their lives as fertilized eggs buried in streambed gravel, where they incubate, hatch, and develop until they emerge as small fry. Juvenile salmon stay in freshwater for several years, depending on the species. They migrate downstream, and spend one to four years in the ocean getting bigger. Once fully grown, the return to freshwater streams and rivers, where they pair up, spawn, and die. It’s called anadromy, from freshwater to saltwater back to freshwater. Pacific salmon die upon returning to spawn, whereas Atlantic salmon, 1 in 10, survives spawning, returns to sea and then returns to spawn again.

Montgomery’s book, or others, on salmon –

Salmon Without Rivers: A History Of The Pacific Salmon Crisis by Jim Lichatowich

Salmon Nation: People, Fish, and Our Common Home by Elizabeth Woody

Making Salmon: An Environmental History of the Northwest Fisheries Crisis (Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books) by Joseph E. Taylor

Mountain in the Clouds: A Search for the Wild Salmon by Bruce Brown

The Organic Machine: The Remaking of the Columbia River (Critical Issue Book) by Richard White

A River Lost: The Life and Death of the Columbia by Blaine Harden

Crossing the Next Meridian: Land, Water, and the Future of the West by Charles F. Wilkinson

What the River Reveals: Understanding and Restoring Healthy Watersheds by Valerie Rapp

The Columbia River Salmon and Steelhead Trout, Their Fight for Survival by Anthony Netboy

These authors give us plenty on the species, the politics, the sustainability, and the nuanced approach to recovery and all the wrong-headedness involved in the developers, cities and farmers and others fighting to keep dams and destroy habit through expansion of their unsustainable practices.

Here’s what Alternet.org says about Salmon Month. For Spokane, salmon represent culture, science, hope, despair and a reawakening of our potential to heal the land.

**************************************************************************

September 2010 has been designated as “Salmon Month” by the Aquarium of the Bay in San Francisco. To celebrate salmon month, SalmonAid (http://www.salmonaid.org) will be sponsoring a month-long series of exciting events, creating an opportunity to educate the public about what has gone so terribly wrong with California’s once bountiful salmon runs.

“Salmon Water Now could not let Salmon Month start without adding our two-cents to the educational process,” said Bruce Tokars, the relentless producer of Salmon Water Now videos. “So we have a new video, actually, two new videos.”

“Bullies of Westlands” is Salmon Water Now’s answer to the reason that wild salmon in such dire shape. The video runs 20:44 minutes and is available on Vimeo uninterrupted and in two parts on YouTube.

“You knows a bully when you see one,” said Tokars in introducing his latest video. “They use their strength and power to get their way or to influence an outcome.”

Tokars said a bully can be a person, or an organization. “In California’s on-going struggle over water, the biggest bully of them all is the Westlands Water District on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley. We believe that in the last couple of years, the once mighty runs of wild salmon have been decimated by the self-righteous bulling tactics of the Westlands Water District,” he stated.

This Salmon Water Now video looks at the words and deeds of Westlands, the “Darth Vader” of California water politics, as they push for more and more water to be shipped south of the Delta to irrigate subsidized crops on selenium-laden soil that should have never been irrigated.

“We see and hear the voices of Westlands and the politicians and media that have been carrying their messages – demanding that their need for water trumps all others,” said Tokars.

Along the way, Tokars documents the struggle of fishery managers trying to determine how many salmon are in the ocean (not many!).

He puts the lie to the Westlands claims that reduced water deliveries have put America’s agricultural output in jeopardy. “We contrast the record, surplus crops of tomatoes, and almonds shipped to China, against the low numbers of salmon that are sold domestically for $20 a pound,” noted Tokars.

“Something is not right,” said Tokars. “The Westlands Water District’s bullying tactics. Their unwillingness to be reasonable in the face of sound science regarding the health of the Delta and the need for balance is not right.”

However, Tokars emphasized, “It is not too late for Westlands to become good citizens. To accept their role in the tragic reality of wild salmon forced to the edge of extinction. It is not too late for Westlands to actually encourage balance and sharing of water. Will it happen? The odds are against the survival of salmon as long as the bullies of Westlands have their way.”

I encourage you to watch this superb video and see for yourself. “It is time to make what is wrong, right again. It is time for bullies to be dismissed for what they are. It is time for salmon water, now!” concluded Tokars.

“Bullies of Westlands” link:

Bullies of Westlands from Bruce Tokars on Vimeo.

In addition to “Bullies of Westlands,” Tokars has released “Jenna’s Salmon,” a short video about a little girl who caught two very large salmon recently. It is a fish tale that explains the angst over the current salmon season – and what is wrong and what is right, too.

“Jenna’s Salmon” link:



Recreational and commercial fishing for Chinook salmon on the ocean off California and Southern Oregon was closed in 2008 and 2009, due to the unprecedented collapse of Central Valley salmon populations. While multiple factors have lead to the demise of Central Valley salmon, none is more significant than massive water exports from the California Delta to corporate agribusiness and Southern California.

Yet the response of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and his collaborators to this unprecedented disaster is to call for the construction of a peripheral canal and new dams to facilitate increased water exports to subsidized agribusiness and Southern California water agencies.

As usual, sharing and embedding of these videos is encouraged.

For more information, contact:

Bruce Tokars, http://www.salmonwaternow.org.

For more information about SalmonAid, go to: http://www.salmonaid.org.

Earth Seeds and Teaching the Young to See We are Controlling this Spaceship

Posted by Paul K. Haeder

.

Mark Joyous calls himself an original “Crew member of Spaceship Earth.” In addition to founding the Global View Foundation and its many “Earthseeds” projects, he calls himself a "self-made entrepreneur" : Joyous Real Estate and founder of www.team-dreams.com and www.teamfunz.net - specializing in "assisting people to team up their energy to fulfill their dreams."

He's on my radio show, Tipping Points: Voices from the Edge, via phone. today, Wed. Jan 20, 3-4 PST, http://www.kyrs.org/. Rebroadcast Jan, 23, Fridays, 6 a.m. PST.

This Buckminster Fuller idea of space ship earth, or Lovelock's Gaia, or the Whole Earth deep ecology of so many deep thinkers, that's part of Joyous' look at how we need to see humanity, us, as "crew members" on earth. The simple act of putting a global of the Earth in the classroom, one made up of 2000 or more photos shot from space in NASA's various programs is self-affirming, life-affirming and globe affirming.

Google Earth is now part of the tool chest for helping citizens fight pollution, logging, illegal bulldozing, and air pollution, and much more. Appalachian Voices uses the Google tool to monitor and fight mountaintop removal.

.

More on these topics soon.

.

http://www.earthseeds.org/

http://www.appvoices.org/

http://earth.google.com/outreach/cs_app_voices.html

Biodiversity Counts -- For Humanity, For Food

Less than 2 percent of the USA population grows our food. This is a bad ratio for eaters and growers. In 1900, more than 50 percent of jobs were directly or indirectly tied to growing food and producing it. We have to protect our soil, we have to protect our ecosystems, our sources of water, and the biodiversity of all commercial species -- potatoes, pigs, the types of eggs in stores, all of it. Growth Management groups and legislation work toward protecting farmland -- or even open space -- because they see that land use tool as necessary in these tipping points times when growing food closer to the consumption source is powerful as a way to fight the negative effects of Peak Oil and climate change. Over the past 80 years, entire lines of beans, livestock, fruits, vegetables have gone the way of near extinction or extinction. That's why there are seed savers and seed repositories --

Above is a rendition of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a "doomsday" seed bank that will store backup copies of as many as three million different crop varieties in case of a worldwide catastrophe. The high-tech vault, opened for storage in February 2008, is going to "put an end to extinction [of] agricultural crops," said Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust in Rome, Italy, which is the leading force behind the project.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/12/photogalleries/seedbank-pictures/index.html

We have International groups tied to food security and food and farming. RAFT -- Renewing America's Food Traditions, Tierra Madre, Slow Food USA. Even in our own Spokane neck of the woods, we have the Main Market co-op and Quillisascut Sustainable Farm School. More on food and ag and what high tech and planning and science and rural sociologists are doing to work on this untold story of the past 10 years.

http://quillisascut.com/

http://www.mainmarket.coop/

.

For now, though, recognizing the work of farmers is important, and they too are recognizing the value of diversity in thought, people, food, livestock, technique and what needs to be done in a time of 7 billion people, global climate destabilization and the like.

International Year of Biodiversity:

Farmers Say that Conserving Biodiversity is a Shared Responsibility

Today marks the launch of the International Year of Biodiversity under the theme Biodiversity is Life - Biodiversity is Our Life. It is a theme of critical interest to farmers since biodiversity and agriculture are interdependent; both are also key elements to address climate change and food security. Conserving biodiversity is a shared responsibility of stakeholders worldwide, and farmers are willing to do their part.

The International Federation of Agricultural Producers (IFAP) will be highlighting, throughout this year, the crucial role played by farmers to conserve ecosystems. IFAP will also be challenging national governments and the international community to put in place programs to help secure the planet's biodiversity, while at the same time, ensuring that farmers have the necessary tools to increase food production by 70 percent by 2050 to feed a growing world population.

''The main issue for farmers is gaining recognition for the multiple roles that agriculture is expected to fulfil and identifying appropriate mechanisms in order to achieve them. We need to help and encourage farmers to improve their current practices, while ensuring they can sustain their families and remain competitive in the markets. These efforts all need be undertaken simultaneously, otherwise you will have food security problems or a compromised ecosystem,'' said Ajay Vashee, IFAP President.

Farmers understand the need to protect and conserve biodiversity, and their role in doing so. At the same time, it is crucial that they maintain the economic viability of their agricultural activities. In 2010, IFAP will strive to find genuine and long-lasting approaches to better conserve and enhance biological diversity that can be implemented by farmers, and will advocate positive and constructive policy approaches to governments and the Convention on Biological Diversity.

"Through such practices as land set asides for wildlife and native species, conservation farming, organic farming, reforestation practices, pastoralism, rotational grazing and rehabilitation of degraded lands, farmers are contributing to the conservation and protection of biodiversity. However, this is a shared responsibility with the rest of society. All stakeholders need to participate. If these efforts are to be expanded on a global scale to reduce biodiversity degradation, appropriate funding, positive incentives for farmers such as payment for ecosystem services, training and policy implementation will be needed to achieve results,'' concluded Vashee.

To move forward on conserving biodiversity, the world farmers'
organization advocates the following actions:


* Government policies for secure land tenure systems and
adequate infrastructure that allows farmers to invest in long-term farming strategies related to biodiversity enhancement.

* Economic partnerships between developing and developed
countries aimed at transferring and adapting stewardship programs, such as credit systems and extension services.

* Recognition of farmers' indigenous knowledge of local resource
management and conservation.

* Increased funding for the scientific research that underpins
the development and sound understanding of how agricultural management interacts with biodiversity. Scientific knowledge and findings should be disseminated, scaled-down and be specific to the dynamics of a particular region.

* Strengthened farmers' participation in the formulation and the
implementation of research projects and rural development strategies to enhance biodiversity.

* Improved policy coordination and planning of environmental
legislation affecting agricultural production. Often different government departments deal with these issues in isolation. There is also a need to increase capacity to enforce legislation in a coordinated way.

* Mainstreaming of the Agricultural Biodiversity program of work
of the CBD (UN Convention on Biodiversity) with the programs of work of the other Multilateral Environment Agreements, such as the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) and the UNCCD (United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification), as well as with food security and rural development programs.


IFAP will be placing biodiversity as a policy priority in 2010.
"Sustainable solutions can be found and many are already available", said the IFAP President, "but responsibility must be shared among all stakeholders".

----

IFAP is the farmers' voice at the world level, representing 600 million family farmers grouped in 112 national organizations in 87 countries. It has been advocating farmers' interests at the international level since 1946. IFAP's mission is to develop farmers' capacities to influence decisions that affect them at both the domestic and international levels. http://www.ifap.org/ <http://www.ifap.org/>

Global Climate Change Impacts -- Not Some TEA Party Topic, but . . . .

How will global climate change affect us? This report look deeply at energy, water, Ag, health. Of course, the effects of climate-related changes are here -- temperatures and sea levels have been rising, The Midwest and northern Great Plains have experienced increases of more than 7 degrees F in average winter temps.

Water resources and the quality of the water are in decline. Floods and droughts, and the mountain snow packs are really in dire straits in the West and Alaska. Ogallala aquifer? Isn't recharging fast enough.

Ag is one of the sectors most able to adapt to climate change, Pests, water stress,hear, disease and all the weather extremes will challenge livestock and crop production.

Read on:

This web page will introduce and lead you through the content of the most comprehensive and authoritative report of its kind. The report summarizes the science and the impacts of climate change on the United States, now and in the future. It focuses on climate change impacts in different regions of the U.S. and on various aspects of society and the economy such as energy, water, agriculture, and health. It’s also a report written in plain language, with the goal of better informing public and private decision making at all levels.

In addition to discussing the impacts of climate change in the U.S., the report also highlights the choices we face in response to human-induced climate change. It is clear that impacts in the United States are already occurring and are projected to increase in the future, particularly if the concentration of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere continues to rise. So, choices about how we manage greenhouse gas emissions will have far-reaching consequences for climate change impacts. Similarly, there are choices to be made about adaptation strategies that can help to reduce or avoid some of the undesirable impacts of climate change. This report provides many of the scientific underpinnings for effective decisions to be made – at the national and at the regional level.

Use the menu navigation to access the various sections of the report. You can also download the corresponding PDFs or order hard copies of the report from Cambridge University Press.

http://www.globalchange.gov/publications/reports/scientific-assessments/us-impacts

A Bath Tub By any Other Name is a Carbon Sink Demo

Pretty simple analysis of what kind of conversation needs to take place at Copenhagen in five days. REALLY. CO2, lag time, feedback loops, systems thinking, holistic action.

Thanks to National Geographic for this "graphic" illustration. It's about narrative framing and systems thinking. Again. Cognitive limitations created by our plugged in society to grasp a simple illustration on how much carbon and GHG's we create versus how much the earth systems can absorb. It's sobering? This cognitive dissonance caused by superficial and unobjective media? By the dwindling K-12 education? By a consumer-driven society? By the Five E's of sustainability -- equity, environment, education, energy and economy driven by greedy economics?

The Carbon Bathtub

It’s simple, really: As long as we pour CO2 into the atmosphere faster than nature drains it out, the planet warms. And that extra carbon takes a long time to drain out of the tub.

A fundamental human flaw, says John Sterman, impedes action on global warming. Sterman is not talking about greed, selfishness, or some other vice. He’s talking about a cognitive limitation, “an important and pervasive problem in human reasoning” that he has documented by testing graduate students at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Sterman teaches system dynamics, and he says his students, though very bright and schooled in calculus, lack an intuitive grasp of a simple, crucial system: a bathtub.

Interactive Climate Change Simulator »

In particular, a tub with the tap running and the drain open. The water level can stand for many quantities in the modern world. The level of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere is one. A person’s waistline or credit card debt—both of which have also become spreading problems of late—are two more. In all three cases, the level in the tub falls only when the drain runs faster than the tap—when you burn more calories than you eat, for instance, or pay off old charges faster than you incur new ones.

Plants, oceans, and rocks all drain carbon from the atmosphere, but as climatologist David Archer explains in his book The Long Thaw, those drains are slow. It’s going to take them hundreds of years to remove most of the CO2 that humans are pouring into the tub and hundreds of thousands of years to remove it all. Stopping the rise of CO2 will thus require huge cuts in emissions from cars, power plants, and factories, until inflow no longer exceeds outflow.

Most of Sterman’s students—and his results have been replicated at other universities—didn’t understand that, at least not when the problem was described in the usual climate jargon. Most thought that simply stopping emissions from rising would stop the rise of CO2 in the atmosphere— as if a tap running steadily but rapidly would not eventually overflow the tub. If MIT graduate students don’t get it, most politicians and voters probably don’t either. “And that means they think it’s easier to stabilize greenhouse gases and stop warming than it is,” Sterman says.

By 2008, the level of CO2 in the tub was 385 parts per million (ppm) and rising by 2 or 3 ppm each year. To stop it at 450 ppm, Sterman says, a level many scientists consider dangerously high, the world would have to cut emissions by around 80 percent by 2050. When diplomats convene in Copenhagen this month to negotiate a global climate treaty, Sterman will be there to help, with software that shows immediately, based on the latest climate-model forecasts, how a proposed emissions cut will affect the level in the tub—and thus the temperature of the planet. His students are generally much better at bathtub dynamics by the end of his course, which gives him hope. “People can learn this,” he says.

—Robert Kunzig
National Geographic

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/big-idea/05/carbon-bath

How High Flying May Come Down to Slow and Low

Aviation – The Limited Sky.

By Paul K. Haeder

Sure, the counterpoints here in this episode are those who think biofuels that are “tweaked” (as in bio-engineering, as in modified, genetically) to become hydrocarbon-like long chains and thus look, act and burn like fossil fuels will help save our frequent flying madness, or as George Monbiot calls it, our love miles, versus those voices who see carbon offsets, slower air speeds, more efficient and straightforward air routes, and a real multi-modal transportation schema that includes high speed electric rail and air ships (those lighter ships that use 1/5 the amount of fuel, and thusly have a factor of ten reduction in harm to the environment, including lower CO2 emissions) as the solution to our limitations.

What’s interesting about the E-Squared series is that there are those who think technology and innovation of products and entrepreneurial thrust will come up with solutions to the very big issues tied to climate change and global warming. Others interview in these documentaries have a more holistic approach to solutions and the true nature of climate change and peak oil/energy. At times, it’s both interesting and a bit off-putting since the E-Squared series is backed by technology as the solution mentality.

Whether we have to cut 80 or 110 percent of our carbon emissions to avoid huge and rapid climate change reverberations in the next decade or two is really not part of the discussion for what seems to be an industry gone wild -- air travel. We just will not have enough oil-based energy for the future.

We have 95 percent of all trade and travel fueled by oil-based energy and products, and yet we see that aviation travel is the fastest growing sector of emissions. Expansion of airports and additional flights are two obvious fallouts of so-called growing economies. We’re looking at 25 percent expansion of air travel in Eastern Europe and China and India; in the USA and Europe, it’s 5 or 6 percent.

How big of a CO2 emissions producer is aviation? The figures vary from 4 to 9 percent, but in any case, the expansion of air travel around the world will fuel more CO2 emissions and will play a role in adding to the melting of the glaciers (maybe 35 years from now all glaciers in the Himalayas will be gone, and that will put 20 percent of the world’s population at risk for deepening water stress scenarios.

This episode discussed the 30 to 50 percent operating costs for airlines coming from hydrocarbon fuels, kerosene, essentially. Innovation in lightweight and strong material in the Boeing 787 Dreamliner just won’t cut the muster.
-
The reality is that there will not be enough oil in the future to run our transportation sectors as we know them. And, if we want to cut into global warming, one leg of the solution is that we have to find a lot of energy, clean energy, to fuel our economies and societies.

Right now, a seat on a jet to Boston is $187 one way. That price is artificially held low since the aviation industry has tons of exemptions in the taxes applied to fuel. Carbon offsetting might be one way to add to the cost of a ticket the real price of that combustion, that air travel.
-
As one of the E-Squared consultants said, it’s absurd that people in Europe fly to New York for a weekend shopping spree. And, there is no silver bullet to a biofuel that will or will not replicate the energy intensity gasoline has. We already have most of the arable land in rotation for food and livestock feed. The price the environment would pay for land used for biofuel is huge.

In the end, the ideology and thrust behind the so –called slow food movement might be applied to transportation – slow travel. Speeds have to be reduced. These air ships can provide some of the trans-Atlantic trips, with luxury overnight accommodations and just real cruise liner in the sky features, like outside deck where one can view the stars in the sky.

The point was emphasized at the end that our grandchildren may be wondering why we ever wanted to have the luxury of flying across the world in a day, considering all the environmental and social costs to that high-flying speed.

Can’t we start with higher prices for airline tickets that reflect the real cost to the environment? What about tugging planes from the terminal to the runway? And making straight lines in our air space and taking out some of the restricted air space limitations? Then this continuous descent approach that lowers fuel consumption? These three major features in air traffic and air space control and operations could offset a lot of fuel burning.

So, E-Squared looked at Amyris Technologies’ research into microbe tweaking to create a carbon based fuel, over the more traditional ethanol production, but in the end, we have to do much more with planning, with our values, with framing these issues of those who may never fly, even to see a loved one on his or her deathbed, and those who constantly fly around the country and world to talk about sustainability.

In the end, one gallon of jet fuel is so much more fuel intensive than ethanol. Maybe 75 to 80 percent more fuel energy intensive.
-
How do planners fit into airport planning? How can we have serious conversations about the global impacts of air travel? We’ve not even finished debating the noise, air quality and visual intrusion of airports and air travel, so when will the idea of the global impact of so much flying on us, nature and other countries with smaller economic choices be broached? -
We need truly innovative planning and distributive thinking in this camp of transportation. Who would rather get to Seattle from Spokane via train if there were many more trains departing and returning? And if the trains ended up in some cool multi-modal transportation hub? And if the trains actually went over 120 miles per hour?

E-Squared shows us the leaders in the areas discussed, but those leaders are behind the constant growth paradigm, the constant profit margin of old economic thinking. We need public-private-government-academic partnerships in designing our communities, our travel, our land, and our needs versus wants.

What is your take on air travel and the points brought up in this 25-minute E-Squared episode?

PacifiCAD and Autodesk Tag-Team with Eastern Washington University for e2 Design, Transportation, Energy Series

By Paul K. Haeder

PacifiCAD is opening up its cache of e2 DVDs for planning, design and other students at Eastern Washington Uninversity's Riverpoint and Cheney campuses. e2 is Autodesk's contribution to the planning, engineering, and architecture fields, to just mention a few of the covered disciplines, and the Fall 2009 quarter students at EWU will not only have the opportunity to view these half-hour episodes, but discussions and Q & A sessions will follow so active learning and big idea making unfold. Additionally, PacifiCAD is opening the blog, this one, to anyone who wants to generate discussion on one or all the respective e2 episodes to be shown.

Part of the deal is PacifiCAD picks up the tab for a few bites of food at one or several of the events. Supporting local restaurants and regional food sourcing, PacifiCAD sees this as an important step to show students, both undergraduate and graduate, that as members of the community, PacifiCAD employees and CEO Ron Reed are willing to invest in their futures.

Also, as the series airs at both campuses, I'll lead off the discussion with a question or two and some quick points tied to sustainability and climate change that dovetail from each episode as I see fit. This will be on the blog, and time permitting, I will be at one campus to help facilitate. I'll report back on the effectiveness and enthusiasm shown after the series concludes in Dec. My active blogging on each episode's major and minor themes might springboard participants and others to open up a discussion board like discourse.

Here's the tentative series schedule at Riverpoint's Spokane Academic Center (SAC) Room 147 from 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM.

6-Oct-09
The Green Apple

Design Season 1

13-Oct-09
Aviation
Transportation

20-Oct-09
The Green Machine
Design Season 1

27-Oct-09
Coal & Nuclear: Problem or Solution?
Energy

3-Nov-09
Affordable Green Housing
Design Season 2

10-Nov-09
Portland: A Sense of Place
Transportation

17-Nov-09
Architecture 2030
Design Season 2

24-Nov-09
State of Resolve
Energy

The Cheney campus e2 series shows will be posted soon.

The blog discussion will be posted soon as well.

Details will be posted.

Discussion of specific episdoes will also be posted.

What can be said now is that this series focuses on paradigm shift, innovation, and beyond-the-envelope thinking when it comes to considering urban-rural-natural environments; public space and communities' resolve to save it and build it; how private industry and governments work together to design, shape and implement alternative energy, net zero carbon building, LEED or beyond architecture, multi-modal transportation choices that may be considered part of any one movement or multiple movements in concert with each other: smart growth, living building, new urbanism, permaculture, retrofitting, post carbonizing, Natural Step/Second Nature and the like. The above schedule reflects a wide net of ideas that students at EWU would like to consider. We are still working out the final schedule, though, so email haederpaul@gmail.com for clarification.

Two thousand scientists and experts from 150 countries begin a march toward climate change sanity

Breaking News – By Paul K. Haeder

So, the decision makers establish a way to begin to codify the production, availability, delivery and application of science-based climate prediction services. In Geneva, more than 2,000 climate scientists, sectorical experts and other established this Global Framework for Climate Services. World Climate Conference-3 (WCC-3), 31 August to 4 September 2009, produced this declaration garnered from from more than 150 countries participating. This is big news -- - heads of State of Ethiopia, Monaco, Mozambique, Slovenia, Tajikistan, the Vice-Presidents of Comoros and the United Republic of Tanzania, the Premier of Niue, the Prime Ministers of Bangladesh, Cook Islands, the Vice-Premier of China, and more than 80 Ministers and other Senior Government Officials.

This conference got many things going related to climate change monitoring, planning, mitigation and collective organizing of resources -- a formalized system that ensures the availability of user-friendly products for all sectors to plan ahead in the face of changing climate conditions.

"The work to implement the Global Framework goes beyond WCC-3 and beyond climate negotiations in Copenhagen this December. Society will need information tools to adapt as the climate will continue to be variable and to change notwithstanding steps taken to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases."

"World Climate Conference-3 is a natural bridge for connecting science to the climate negotiations for Copenhagen," said Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations, who spoke at the WCC-3 High-Level Segment opening after a visit to the polar ice rim north of the Norwegian island of Svalbard. "Scientific knowledge must be the basis for global climate policy, both for mitigation and adaptation to inevitable climate impacts. The Global Framework for Climate Services is an important step toward strengthening the application of climate science in local, regional, national and international decision-making."

"The Framework gives us an instrument to better adapt on actual climate change," said H.E. Moritz Leuenberger, Federal Councillor, Head of Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications, and twofold former President of the Swiss Confederation. The Framework "builds a bridge between the science, climate experts and users around the world and within as many as possible users in several socio-economic sectors," said Leuenberger, who co-chaired the WCC-3 High-level Segment opening.

"Climate change and variability are global phenomena which affect us all in different forms," said H.E. Armando Emílio Guebuza, President of Mozambique and co-chair of the High-level Segment. "The hea twaves and the floods developed countries experience demonstrate that no single country is immune to these phenomena. More importantly, the very fact that climate change and variability interfere with the Millennium Development Goals should urge us all to act today because tomorrow may be too late."

"The Global Framework for Climate Services aims to enhance climate observations and monitoring, transform that information into sector-specific products and applications, and disseminate those products widely," said Alexander Bedritsky, WMO President and Chair of the WCC-3 Expert Segment.

The 1, 500 scientists and sector experts who participated in the WCC-3 Expert Segment (31 August-2 September) supported the development of the proposed Global Framework and called for a strengthening of five essential elements:

• 
  The Global Climate Observing System and all its components, encouraging exchange and access to climate data

http://www.wmo.ch/pages/prog/gcos/index.php?name=about

Based on performance reports of all GCOS component systems, national reports on systematic observation for climate, expert advice and an open review by the community, the Report provides an assessment of progress since 2004 in maintaining, strengthening, or otherwise facilitating global observations of the climate system for the purposes of the UNFCCC. It is based on the 131 Actions called for in the 2004 "GCOS Implementation Plan" (GCOS-92).

Also see: http://eospso.gsfc.nasa.gov/

The Earth Observing System (EOS) is a coordinated series of polar-orbiting and low inclination satellites for long-term global observations of the land surface, biosphere, solid Earth, atmosphere, and oceans. EOS is a major component of the Earth Science Division of NASA's Science Mission Directorate. EOS enables an improved understanding of the Earth as an integrated system. The EOS Project Science Office (EOSPSO) is committed to bringing program information and resources to program scientists and the general public alike.

• 
  
  The World Climate Research Program, underpinned by adequate computing resources and increased interaction with other global climate research initiatives



• 
  Climate services information systems taking advantage of existing national and international arrangements


• 
  Climate user interface mechanisms focused on building linkages and integrating information between the providers and users of climate services;


• 
  Efficient and enduring capacity building through education, training and strengthened outreach and communication.

Within 12 months of the task force being set up it will prepare a report that will include next steps for developing and implementing the Framework. The WMO Secretary-General will then circulate the report to WMO Members for consideration at the WMO Congress in 2011 with a view toward the Framework's implementation.

Sept. 3rd’s keynote address was by Rajendra Kumar Pachauri, Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and co-winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

Basically, Pachauri laid out the realities associated with a 2 degrees Celsius target – that is, containing global temperature increase to no more than 2 degrees Celsius. Just through thermal expansion, sea-level rise is inevitable and undoubtedly will threaten millions of people in coastal areas and large deltas locations. He pointed out that in order to achieve the 2 degrees Celsius target, 2015 has to be the point where global greenhouse gas emissions peak, with a global commitment and policies and infrastructure that will push GGHE’s into a sharp decline.

"Given that the inertia in the system will result in climate change and its impacts, even if we reduced our emissions to zero today, the global community has to address the need for adaptation measures, particularly in the most vulnerable regions of the world", Pachauri said. More blogs on this soon.

For a full WCC-3 programme and more details, visit the WCC-3 Website: http://www.wmo.int/wcc3

A Telescope, a Church, an Earthworm, a Revolution --

By Paul K. Haeder

He refined the device he obtained from the Netherlands, and his eight-power telescope proved Copernicus correct (the earth and planets revolved around the Sun) and he saw the moon was pock-marked, not smooth, and that Jupiter has moons.

It’s been a heck of a year, with the anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth 200 years ago, his book, On the Origin of the Species published 150 years ago, and Galileo’s telescope’s birthday Aug. 25, 1609.

Galileo spent the last 10 years of his life under house arrest, as the Catholic Church took his findings to be more than hierarchal. It was in 1992 when the Catholic Church softened its stance on Galileo. Reading Dava Sobel’s Galileo’s Ghost shows the true nature of Galileo’s struggle to prove his worth, his value to science and his struggle with the isolation of his genius. His daughter Celeste wrote 120 letters from the convent her father put her into. Her life and his were entwined in the complications of his time, a father's guilt for giving up his three illegitimate daughters, and his own doubts. Sobel’s book’s subtitle says a lot about his time 400 years ago, and our own with the misinformation and so-called astroturfing by the American Petroleum Institute denying the very science that got them the geology to exploit fossil fuel in the first place: a memoir of science, faith, and love. Add superstition to the list for Galileo's time and our own now as we try and center discussion and thought on climate change.

http://galileo.rice.edu/

http://galileo.rice.edu/fam/maria.html

http://brunelleschi.imss.fi.it/telescopiogalileo/index.html

So, hats off to Galileo’s Venetian telescope and findings. Four hundred years ago the force of discovery changed the course of math, philosophy, technology. We’ll cover more of Galileo and Darwin, whose explanation of natural selection as a mechanism that made evolution plausibly able to explain the origin of species -- without reference to a creator -- set a new path toward the science and technology we have today. No snapping fingers. No intelligent design. We are a world that is based on humanity’s skills to figure out how some of the world works. Darwin set the stage for all scientific work. According to the eminent late evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr, "Eliminating God from science made room for strictly scientific explanations of all natural phenomena; it gave rise to positivism; it produced a powerful intellectual and spiritual revolution, the effects of which have lasted to this day."

Galileo faced being burned at the stake for his intellect, his findings. The current Pope has attempted to appreciate the value of Galileo, but, alas, revisionism is what propels Benedict to proclaim Galileo great.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/The-Pope-Recognized-the-Importance-of-Galileo-039-s-Astronomy-100617.shtml

Until the post on Darwin’s importance to science, here are books on Chuck –

Steve Jones’ Darwin’s Ghost

One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought
Mayr, Ernst. Harvard University Press, Reprint Edition (2005).

Charles Darwin, Geologist
Herbert, Sandra. Cornell University Press, (2005).

Inside the Beagle with Charles Darwin
Macdonald, Fiona. Enchanted Lion Books, (2005).

From So Simple a Beginning: Darwin's Four Great Books
Wilson, Edward O. (Editor). W. W. Norton, (2005).

Darwin's Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society
Wilson, David. University Of Chicago Press, (2003).

Darwin: Discovering the Tree of Life
Eldredge, Niles. W. W. Norton, (2005).

The Tree of Life
By Peter Sís
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2003

It might seem surprising to begin a column on books about Charles Darwin with a children's title (age 8 and up), but this delightful volume is a superior introduction for all readers to the great naturalist. The delicate drawings and diagrams -- displaying animals, plants, instruments, portraits, maps -- lend to the book the flavor of a gorgeously illuminated medieval manuscript. Peter Sís's images, like Darwin's own writings, invite the reader to observe carefully and make connections. The emphasis on detail comes across best in a cross-section of the Beagle, the ship that took Darwin around the world. This is a book to think with and an ideal way to escape the mindless polemics (and hero worship) that will inevitably crop up during the 2009 bicentenary of Darwin's birth on Feb. 12. Give it to your kids, if you can stop looking at it long enough yourself.

The Beak of the Finch
By Jonathan Weiner
Knopf, 1994

The theory of evolution, for all its generality, is founded on the observation of tiny differences in plants and animals. The classic instance involves "Darwin's finches" from the Galápagos Islands. These exceptionally variable birds range in type from the bark-stripping vegetarian to the blood-drinking vampiric (preying on another Galápagos bird, the booby). It is often assumed that the finches provided Darwin with on-the-spot evidence that clinched the case for evolution. But this is a myth. To watch "evolution in action" among the finches, as the biologists Peter and Rosemary Grant began to do in the 1970s, has taken almost unimaginable patience. In "The Beak of the Finch," a classic of science writing, Jonathan Weiner brings to life the scientific process as practiced both in Darwin's era and among modern Galápagos researchers. We watch as the Grants measure barely perceptible differences in the lengths of beaks, gather tiny drops of blood for DNA sequencing and trace birds over many generations. There is no better way to understand the character of Darwinian science.

The Politics of Evolution
By Adrian Desmond
University of Chicago, 1989

London in 1837, where Darwin moved soon after the Beagle voyage, was a modern Babylon: dirty, noisy and dangerous. It was in this bustling metropolis, not on a tropical island or in the rural isolation of his later home in Kent, that he forged the theory of evolution. Adrian Desmond's "The Politics of Evolution" shows why it matters that Darwin began his speculations in London during a turbulent era of political and religious reform. Forget polite academic discussions and salon conversations about divine design; the ideas Darwin was contemplating in the 1830s were threatening and divisive. When "On the Origin of Species" was finally published in 1859, it came into a very different scene, causing little of the uproar it would have prompted two decades earlier.

Charles Darwin
By Janet Browne
Knopf, 1995, 2002 (two vols.)

There are several fine biographies of Darwin, but Janet Browne's two-volume work is the best at capturing the genteel and peculiarly English tone of Darwin's life. The early chapters might almost be taken from an undiscovered Jane Austen novel: We watch an aimless young man emerge as a leading naturalist and daringly speculative theorist. Browne draws on the comprehensive edition of Darwin's correspondence, which is being prepared by an international team at the University of Cambridge. The biography's second volume, which opens with the publication of "On the Origin of Species," traces Darwin's ability to turn fame to account in spreading his ideas. Few long biographies are so successful at maintaining interest and energy right to the end.

Darwin Loves You
By George Levine
Princeton, 2006

Does Darwinism strip the world of meaning, reducing life to cutthroat competition and cold calculation? Fundamentalist atheists and evangelical Christians generally agree that it does, but such a perspective is far too narrow. In this highly personal book, the literary historian George Levine argues that Darwin's work, with its generous language that invites interpretation, has the potential to create aesthetic and moral value. Darwin writes of flying squirrels, pouting pigeons, peacocks' tails and the instincts of ants. But he also encourages wonder at small things, gradual forces and the power of individual action in a world of life and possibility.

Book blurbs by James A. . Secord, the editor of Darwin's Evolutionary Writings (Oxford, 2008), the director of the Darwin Correspondence Project and professor of the history and philosophy of science at Cambridge University

The Reluctant Mr. Darwin is a book for everyone who has ever wondered about who this man was and what he said. Drawing from Darwin's secret "transmutation" notebooks and his personal letters, David Quammen has sketched a vivid life portrait of the man whose work never ceases to be controversial.