apple juice

This is a great list of ideas for reducing your carbon footprint from the New York Times:

Global climate: it’s complicated. Any long-term solution will require profound changes in how we generate energy. At the same time, there are everyday things that you can do to reduce your personal contribution to a warming planet. Here are seven simple guidelines on how your choices today affect the climate tomorrow.

A colleague of mine generously lent her Nissan Leaf for us to test drive for the week. We need to answer two questions before we head down the electric car route:

1. Will the range be enough for daily driving in our two car household.
2. Is it cleaner than a hybrid or small diesel.

The answer to first question seems to be an unequivocal yes. Total daily driving for each of us is about 8 miles. Total miles driven in the household each day – about 16. It’s not much. We’ve ended each day with plenty of range on the Leaf. We can’t envision a day where it would be a problem.

The answer to question #2 is a little more difficult. I’ve heard anecdotally about the relative cleanliness of electricity generation vs. burning automotive fuel. I discovered one paper so far in my not-exhaustive research: A Roadmap to Climate Friendly Cars: 2013

Basically, in Minnesota if you don’t take in to account the manufacturing of the car, it is cleaner than the next cleanest option (a plug-in prius). If you do take in to account the manufacturing, it is less clean.

However, I imagine you can tip that balance on an individual basis by installing rooftop solar panels.

If we head down this path, my dear readers, you can be sure that I will blog about it here in excruciating detail… more to come!

Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree: #climate change is real, man-made and dangerous. Read more: OFA.BO/gJsdFp

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) May 16, 2013

It’s going to take a lot more than tweets to get new policy on climate change. but there is hope. You probably read the guardian’s recent post that 97% of scientific papers on climate change agree that it is man-made. You’ve also probably read that we’ve passed 400ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Here’s hoping that the next 30 years brings serious and sustained action on climate. Time to vote the deniers out of office… Glenn Gruenhagen of Glencoe – I’m looking at you for starters. “United Nations fraud and lie”? Conspiracy theory much?

“We are not saints like those Scandinavians — we were lapping up fossil fuels, buying bigger cars and homes, very American,” said Eamon Ryan, who was Ireland’s energy minister from 2007 to 2011. “We just set up a price signal that raised significant revenue and changed behavior. Now, we’re smashing through the environmental targets we set for ourselves.”

Carbon Taxes Make Ireland Even Greener

I have a new favorite blog…

The failure of Drill Baby, Drill

“U.S. oil production is on track to hit its highest level since 1993. What has that done to gas prices for consumers? Virtually nothing. Yet again, analysts are pointing out the obvious: even with massive increases in domestic oil drilling, the impact on gasoline prices is minimal. That’s because oil is a global market and U.S. supplies — even with historic increases — still don’t make a major dent.”

I blogged about this earlier in the year in a short note encouraging an increase in the gas tax. I still think it is a good idea.

Maybe the RNC was just what Obama’s campaign needed…

There were a number of “are you kidding me?!?!?” moments during the republican convention. In particular for me was when Romney made a sanctimonious and sarcastic joke about the oceans rising. Just goes to show you exactly how some Republicans feel about the environment. (or at least, the people that Romney’s internal polling said would be most motivated by that statement)

Anyway, mocking a President for attempting to shepherd the country into a more environmentally-responsible future seems a little rich. Isn’t it a moral issue to treat the environment with respect?

Likewise, with health care. I’ve read a number of posts that basically make a moral case with regards to health care:

→ Bugged

“when we as a country have become so small and stingy and mean that we cheer the idea of ripping medical care away from fellow citizens, offering nothing in its place but sanctimony and self-rightenousness… What are we? We’re not a country. We’re not a community.”

(Via Marco.org.)

More people with health care is a good thing I wish people would stop acting like it is everything but.

A 20-Year Low in U.S. Carbon Emissions – NYTimes.com

“Energy-related carbon dioxide emissions in the United States from January through March were the lowest of any recorded for the first quarter of the year since 1992, the federal Energy Information Administration reports. The agency attributed the decline to a combination of three factors: a mild winter, reduced demand for gasoline and, most significantly, a drop in coal-fired electricity generation because of historically low natural gas prices. Whether emissions will continue to drop or begin to rise again, however, remains to be seen, experts said Friday.”

Great news, for what’s its worth, however…

Of course, wind and solar energy greatly outperform any fossil fuel when it comes to efficiency. But last year those sectors supplied less than 5 percent of the nation’s electricity in 2011.

Dr. Apt is among those who believes that government intervention would be needed to cut emissions to acceptable levels. “If we see more and more variability in the climate, not just droughts but also more storms, there may very well emerge a consensus that we need to finally do something to stop this very dangerous unprecedented experiment that we’re doing on the planet,” he said.

We’re way above the levels that scientists consider necessary to prevent further warming. For example, the glaciers of Glacier National Park have experienced rapid melting this year, and are expected to be gone altogether in 10 years.

We need government regulations at this point. The private sector will not steer us away from this. (Though it will be part of the solution, the innovations needed to solve this crisis will come from all sectors)