We like to avoid the gloom and doom around here, but this has to be said. The first presidential debate, about to get underway at Ole Miss as I write, will hopefully contain some kind of casual, glancing reference to the climate-change pollution stat that came out today.
Basically, the chemicals that contribute to global warming when released into Earth’s atmosphere got released 3% more this year than last year, making the direst predictions of 2007 look optimistic.
But why get angry yet? Maybe one of the candidates will say something fittingly urgent in tone. Maybe Jim Lehrer will bring it up. Or I’ll have the excuse to start smoking again that I’ve been looking for.
flickr: Image/mind’s-eye
As pessimists on climate change are fond of reminding us, China and India are catastrophically prolific builders of coal-fired power plants these days. While we’re busy greening the Emmy Awards, they are quietly doing what they feel they need to do to provide energy for their expanding economies, more than compensating for all of the West’s cute anti-warming efforts by increasing the gadrillions of tons of carbon they release into our shared atmosphere. But new carbon burying tech might help them not be so destructive.
The consulting firm McKinsey & Co has just issued a report saying that even without government funding, the technology for trapping the carbon emitted by coal plants and burying it might pay for itself by 2030. China and India probably won’t throw themselves into the new tech whole-heartedly at first, because it looks like it will add about a billion euros to the initial cost of building each new plant. But the EU has stepped up by ordering a slew of trial models built by 2015.
Of course, there’s the small problem of the rich West having already created a horrendous climate situation. Not the best dynamic for pressuring an ascendant China into good stewardship. We’re basically the parent that just got thrown out of Betty Ford trying to get junior to put down the vodka. I think that might have been what happened in Postcards from the Edge.
Image: flickr/thewritingzone
I should admit here I have not been a Segway believer. Ever since I saw Will Arnett straddle one on Arrested Development I have not been able to understand any possible use of the machine other than comic prop. I realize now that this was slightly unfair.
A British MP just defied possible arrest to lead a charge of Segwayists through London, trying to get the Department of Transportation in England to clarify whether they’re legal to drive on roads or not. He points out that in a dense urban area, they go faster than the average speed cars are able to move in traffic, and emit virtually nothing.
I guess my confusion is still this: They go 12 mph. Doesn’t a bicycle go that fast? But I guess if you don’t want to get your suit sweaty… I forget that people still go to offices in suits.
Image: flickr/RobotSkirts
A commentary in the Guardian suggests today that we should face the reality that maybe none of the emissions control policies we’re trying to implement will do anything to stop catastrophic irreversible global warming. But facing this reality need not involve suicide, moving to Quebec City, etc.
Geo-thermal engineering, apparently, is a possible answer of last resort. Scientists everywhere agree it’s really risky, but if we had to we could potentially shoot vast quantities of certain chemical agents into the atmosphere to reflect back the sun. No, not immediately comforting. But one of the plans involves a series of yachts crossing the world. Which is at least glamorous.
Image: flickr/radiant guy
A California scientist and cement obsessive has started to churn out cement that doesn’t emit much carbon. Since we’re not going to stop the world’s population from expanding (realistically, any time soon) we should pave paradise the nice way.
The big questions, as always, are: how much, how fast how cheap? Cement Guy claims cheaper than the normal cement. And that making it in bulk is no problem. And that its manufacturing process can actually absorb emissions from polluters like coal power plants.
Cement accounts for about five percent of the carbon emissions in the world — eliminating its contribution to global warming would be the equivalent of eliminating America. Or almost eliminating China.
What a weird twist of fate that would be: if the way to make the world greener were to make it look more like one the post-industrial backdrops in the Halo games.
Image: flickr/billjacobus1
Detroit’s condition is not the kind of thing you want to rub your hands in bloggy schadenfreude over. Blue-collar layoffs have started turning into white-collar layoffs. And when they sell cars that do horrible things to the planet they’re just trying to give the American public what it wants.
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Four Democratic senators called on EPA chief Stephen Johnson to resign yesterday: Barbara Boxer of California, who is chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, and Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey. They basically accused Johnson of perjury. They also announced they’d asked Attorney General Michael Mukasey to look into prosecuting him.
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The Associated Press just published an internal memo the EPA’s chief of staff sent to managers telling them to not let staffers cooperate with the agency’s own inspector general but forward the info requests to him. In addition to the inspector general, employees aren’t supposed to talk to congressional investigators (!) or reporters (no “!”).
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So you no longer want to be a scourge of everything we hold dear / friend to Saudi Arabia. You want to throw away your SUV. But how is it done? A San Franciscan named Ryan Mickle raised the question for real on a web site this month, and little by little became a web phenom.
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In LA, people can barely handle carpool lanes. I wonder what would happen here if we tried what Beijing just allegedly pulled off: a day when cars with odd-numbered plates have to stay off the road, then another day when the ones with even-numbered plates have to stay home. This was accomplished because their smog is actually worse than ours and they have an Olympics coming up.
If we tried that here, it would be one situation in which having a vanity plate would actually be worth it. (No numbers in WLD DOGZ). So for America I propose an alternate system: women are forbidden from driving one day, men the next. What better way to subject cultural stereotypes regarding driving habits to scientific rigor? Teenagers vs. old people would be next.
Image: flickr/zzanthras777
