Citizen Power

If you think about it seriously you can often find a connection between unusual weather events and climate change.  That’s true of flooding this year already.  President Obama has declared a State of Emergency in Fargo, ND.   The Red River in the area is expected to crest at 43 feet this weekend, which will be a disaster for homes and businesses on this flood plain.  Right now, the flood waters are at over 40-1/2 feet .  Volunteers from across the Midwest are fighting against time to fill sandbags and implement flood relief measures.   Obama recently suggested that the flooding currently happening in Fargo is connected to climate change and that this flood should help raise everyone’s awareness of it.  He may be right.  Flooding to this degree, and it seems to get worse every year, is not how things have always been  in Fargo.

This page from North Dakota State University shows past flood photos.  It seems there have been Red River floods in the past but not as frequently as now (which is almost every year).  There were big floods in 1969, 1975, 1984, 1989, 1995, 1997, and then in 2001, 2006, and 2009.  Some of the flooding is being blamed on blizzards this year.  When I lived in Moorhead there were blizzards every year, but no major floods. In fact, the photo here is of Moorhead, only a couple of days ago.

But the floods in Fargo are probably doing a lot more in the U.S. to raise awareness of winter and bad weather, because no scientists are really coming out in the media to show cause and effect of rapid melting in the spring, or what might be causing this flooding.  I have noticed rapid melting gradually in the last 5-6 years, because I live in central Minnesota.  For the last 3 springs my unattached garage and much of my backyard has flooded.  My garage in particular has filled with more than an inch of water from melting snow.  This started happening a few years ago, no matter how much snow we have had.

Spring use to come gradually to Minnesota, but now it comes suddenly.  One week it’s below freezing, the next we have a string of days in the 40s and 50s.  This may be  caused by solar flares, (according to my crazy Congresswoman ) but I really doubt it.  (That last comment was sarcasm, in case you missed it).

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On Monday, March 23, President Obama spoke specifically about clean energy, and described plans to spend about $59 billion in economic stimulus funds and $150 billion from the federal budget to promote a  clean energy future.  The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, (aka the stimulus bill) officially includes $39 billion the Energy Department and $20 billion in tax incentives for clean energy.  Even so, Obama didn’t say a lot that we haven’t heard before.  In fact, he mentioned cap and trade and energy again on Tuesday night during his press conference.  He’s a big fan of cap and trade (I’m not). I think we need to take more drastic action.

But the most interesting part of the speech were the remarks made by MIT President, Susan Hockfield, said before the President spoke.  She described our current energy problems as:  rapidly increasing energy demand, energy security, and solving the climate change crisis.  Hockfield called clean energy an historic investment, and said the stimulus bill makes a major investment in energy stimulus,  including 6.5 billion for R&D, which to her was the most important part, being the president of a major and prestigious university known for its research.

She called the stimulus bill the largest and most important investment in technology since Sputnik inspired the launch of the Apollo program.

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The tiny Tata car is admittedly cute and compact, and I wish I could have one myself — but only if it were electric.  And why couldn’t it be — it’s small enough and looks lightweight enough to go pretty far on existing battery technology.   Unfortunately, the new small car from the Indian automaker that’s on the market right now is futuristic looking but still runs on gasoline, getting about  54 mpg (very respectable for an old fossil-fuel burning engine) So, it’s a throwback to all the other combustion engines out there.  Overall, I’d say Tata Motors is doing pretty good with emissions compared to other car makers though, especially American ones.  And it’s not a bad car, as cars go.   It’s actually got some room in it.   Tata Motors is also doing well with sales already, as India’s largest automobile company with revenues of US $ 7.2 billion in 2006-2007.

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This may or may not be the first — and last — photo of the first unofficial astronaut bat.  On Sunday, the shuttle Discovery launched into space on a two-week mission to bring supplies to the International Space Station.  Unfortunately for the suit-less and helmet-less bat, he was launched into space also.  The bat was last seen clinging to the foam on one of the external fuel tanks.   According to CNN and NASA, they noticed the bat and brought in a wildlife expert who said it appeared the poor little thing had a broken wing and possibly a wounded right shoulder.  There was no way to get him down or off the fuel tank, so the space shuttle had to launch with him on it.  Shuttle launches occur near the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, so bats are not uncommon in the area.  NASA officials revealed that another would-be astronaut bat was spotted on a tank in 1998, but that one flew away as the shuttle began firing up its rockets.  This bat sadly could not fly away, so it clung on for a ride into space.   (see more about the shuttle mission below).

The shuttle mission had already been delayed 3 times due to suspected fuel leaks, so they needed to lift off when they finally did, bat or no bat.  The doomed bat has inspired tributes and much sympathy online from animal lovers and NASA watchers.  The following video is one of the most touching, set to music from the last Star Trek TV show “Enterprise”.   (Enterprise is also the name of another space shuttle).

The mission of this shuttle was even more important than the bat.  The 7 human astronauts delivered the fourth and final solar panel segment of the ISS’s solar array, and after it’s installed, it will add a full 50% more power to it.  The new array will make the ISS the 2nd most bright object in the sky now, after the moon.

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Contrails or chemtrails — if you ever look up at the sky on a bright and otherwise non-cloudy day, you might see the criss-crossing of jet contrails.  Sometimes they form patterns that seem so obviously designed they enter the category of “chemtrails”. That means, to people who study these things, that they were put there for a purpose.  The purpose varies, depending on the people or group who are studying them.  One (reported) purpose is to fight global warming, and another purpose could be for “population control” (whatever that means) and another purpose to these that I have read about it claims the government is trying to poison us or alter our behavior with chemicals.  To what end?  I tend to not believe conspiracy theories that have the government always trying to kill us.  (If they are trying to kill us, they are doing a terrible job of it.)  I just don’t believe the more nefarious reasons for chemtrails.  Whoever is spraying these chemicals into the air, if they are actually for a purpose, probably do not have a deadly purpose in mind but may be trying to alleviate global warming a little bit.  If they are not doing that, maybe they are spraying for insects, or maybe they are seeding clouds for it to rain.  There could be a hundred reasons to see emissions in the sky.  The mess in the skies and the clouds being created by this is referred to by many people as “global dimming”, and it’s true that it adds to that, but so does any regular smog or pollution.

Whether chemtrails are done on purpose is another thing that is being debated. I have seen variations of them myself and I think they are usually just plane’s and jet’s contrails that show up more on some days when the atmospheric conditions are just right than on other days. But they are definitely altering the sky’s composition.

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My mission is simple:  Find the coolest car with the best mileage that is so affordable I can still afford solar panels on my roof next year.  Impossible?  Yes.  But it’s fun to look at dream cars anyway.  Here’s a candidate.  (The problem with the best cars is that no one is making them quite yet.)  The car pictured here runs on gas fumes.  I beat them to it — while I was in college I drove my car nearly everywhere on gas fumes.  But it didn’t get very good mileage.

This car somehow makes it work.  (It also looks like it’s made out of plastic).

There is another car, highlighted in this article , that is so thin it can rival motorcycles for parking spaces. And the oddest sounding is the Air Car.  It supposedly runs on air.  All of these cars are entered in a contest for the Progressive Automotive X Prize.  It’s an international competition with a prize of $10 million to see which car can actually be driven regularly and get 100mpg.   My question is:  if these cars work as promised, wouldn’t some car company pay them that much for the patent?  And if they work as promised, I would think they’d be worth a lot more than $10 million.  A car that runs on air is the equivalent of the perpetual motion machine. It sounds too good to be true and it probably is, but if it isn’t . . . . think of the possibilities.  Naturally, none of the major car U.S. manufacturers are entering the contest.   And the reason I looked this up in the first place is that a radio show had a guest on it last week who was talking about how Europe already has 100mpg cars. How can that be true, when we have nothing close?

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President Obama Confident with a Focus on ENERGY, Healthcare, and Education

President Obama addressed a joint session of Congress Tuesday night and did all he could to calm our fears and give us a vision for the future, and he knocked it out of the park. He spoke with confidence of our economy (much more confidence than I feel) and of America’s ability to tackle great problems and find solutions. I especially liked the part about focusing on 3 things (besides the economy and jobs) in the future: Energy, health care, and education. Notice there is no longer any paranoid focus on terrorism, or war, or “national security”. Also noticed he managed to give an entire speech without using the words “war on terror” or the WWII Nazi-like word “homeland”, a word I absolutely despise. (I do not live in a “homeland”, I live in my country, known as the U.S.A. My home is in Minnesota.) The text of his speech in its entirety can be found here, and there is video there also. The speech also went over well with viewers. According to the Huffington Post:

“…a poll on CNN showed that 68 percent of respondents — who skewed a bit Democratic — viewed the speech positively, 24 somewhat positively, and only eight percent not positively. Eighty-two percent supported the president’s economic plan as outlined in the speech, while 17 percent opposed it.”

It was a speech that was light years more calm, confident, adept, knowledgeable, and wise than anything his predecessor could have given on his best day. If this speech doesn’t take care of banks and investor attitudes, there is no hope for them. Yet he he made very clear that we must make clean energy a top priority, that we have to get off foreign oil, and that we have to “save our planet from the ravages of climate change”. Here are some of the energy related excerpts:

“We have known for decades that our survival depends on finding new sources of energy. Yet we import more oil today than ever before….

Now is the time to jumpstart job creation, re-start lending, and invest in areas like energy, health care, and education that will grow our economy, even as we make hard choices to bring our deficit down. . . .

The recovery plan and the financial stability plan are the immediate steps we’re taking to revive our economy in the short-term. But the only way to fully restore America’s economic strength is to make the long-term investments that will lead to new jobs, new industries, and a renewed ability to compete with the rest of the world. The only way this century will be another American century is if we confront at last the price of our dependence on oil….

We are a nation that has seen promise amid peril, and claimed opportunity from ordeal. Now we must be that nation again. That is why, even as it cuts back on the programs we don’t need, the budget I submit will invest in the three areas that are absolutely critical to our economic future: energy, health care, and education.

The specifics on clean energy and climate change action:

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President Obama met with Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper on Thursday during a brief official visit to Canada.

They talked privately and later held a join press conference. The crowds loved President Obama; he stopped at a shopping center and got a lot of Canadian love along with some Maple Leaf cookies for the Obama daughters. (Finally, we can be not ashamed that our president is liked, and not despised, when he visits other countries!) But the discussion during this brief visit was serious. In part, Harper and Obama discussed “clean energy”. We presume they discussed the Alberta tar sands, or what the industry euphemistically refers to as the “oil sands.” There isn’t technically oil in the dirt in Alberta; it’s a form of tar, which is a super thick, sludgey form of a very crude, very dirty substance than can be processed into oil, after a massive expenditure of heat and water and energy. Then it is shipped into the U.S., where we buy a lot of it, unfortunately, to run our cars and more.   All this at the expense of the atmosphere and the environment in the area where this sludge is mined.

But they did make some quasi-progress:  they both vowed to speed up carbon capture and sequestration to clean up C02 in some type of joint agreement/project.  This will be difficult, however, since CCS does not yet exist except in experimental stages.  It just does not exist.  Basically, if this is progress, it’s meaningless.   Canada will continue to pump C02 into the air, uncaptured, and so will the U.S.  When will real progress come?

Environmental groups and most everyone else who knows about the tar sands were hoping President Obama would finally tell Canada that we don’t want their dirty tar for our energy. But the conversation was obviously much more amicable than that, (as it probably needed to be) and at the very least it laid the groundwork for cooperation on “clean energy” in the future. Oil and especially tar sands oil will never, ever be “clean energy”, no matter what they do with it. And the environmental damage being caused in Canada is just devastating.

This all comes after a federal court judge has reversed a decision on mountaintop removal in the United States. (See Appeals court overturns new mountaintop mine rules).

The coal mining issue is not turning out as well as I had hoped, but there is time for Obama to redeem himself in all of these areas and I expect he will soon. Meanwhile, you can see amazing photos of the tar sands in Alberta at this Flickr stream called Stop the Tar Sands.

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Graphic from the Sustainable Scale Project

The days of pumping unlimited C02 into the air are numbered.  The new, improved EPA is going to be run based on “science” which means right-wing claims that C02 is “a life-giving gas” are no longer going to fly.  About two years ago there was a big backlash against environmentalists by Big Oil and Big Coal with videos that claimed C02 was good for us.  Well, C02 is poisonous in large quantities, and it’s also what is causing global warming, so it cannot accurately be described as “good for us.”   In fact, a new report has set off alarm bells.

We all need to know how to spot alarmist anti-science propaganda. One example: Is it on a website called Prison Planet? That’s a good tip-off. For some reason, libertarian alarm-monger Alex Jones is pushing the idea that not only did our government plan and carry out the terrorist attacks of 9/11, but he’s convinced that C02 is completely harmless. (it’s obviously not) This is just one example of how nutty Alex Jones is. On his website he says, “Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is not pollution and Global Warming has nothing to do with pollution.” What a kidder!   Keep in mind, this man has a huge fan club of supposed freedom lovers who hang on his every word. So for some reason Jones goes from warning us about a military police state to the people who want to control your life with climate change claims. It’s an odd side-hobby for a guy who accepts the 9/11 conspiracy theory but denies real science. He posted this video too.

RIGHT WING PROPAGANDA:

Stick to martial law, Mr. Jones.

ACTUAL SCIENCE:

From January 2008 to January 2009, the planet warmed a remarkable 0.37°C (see data here ). This is 20 times the annual rate of warming in recent decades and 20 times what most climate models have projected we should be experiencing. This is startling when you look at the data that goes back to 1880! And what is causing the warming? A rise in C02.

These are real numbers from NASA, not some opinion from a conspiracy-obsessed blogger. And this news is not great either:

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We already have Frankenfood — vegetables, fruit, and grains, genetically engineered to produce the maximum growth in the least amount of time with the maximum size, shape, etc., for transport. That’s why we get funny-tasting bananas and tasteless strawberries and squarish, pinkish tomatoes that travel well but taste like nothing. Is engineering of nature a trend we want to carry out on a planetary scale with our climate? We might not have a choice in the matter, say some scientists, due to America’s incredible procrastination on the crisis of climate change.

A “Frankenplanet” scenario might be necessary to take the existing C02 out of the atmosphere because we need to keep C02 levels at 350ppm and we are currently at 386ppm. Some scientists have suggested CCS — carbon capture and sequestration, to remove the C02. Some scientists are suggesting planting more plants to absorb the C02 and act as a “carbon sink”. Others are suggesting bio-char. Biochar is burning  biomass at low levels of heat to make charcoal and then burying it in the soil to take it out of the carbon cycle. It seems like a huge job, but it’s what NASA scientist James Hansen recommends. Those are the sane suggestions.

Other scientists are recommending even stranger things to save our atmosphere from runaway climate change, like geoengineering. That’s a very drastic remedy, but consider that we aren’t doing anything at all about climate change, you can see why it might be necessary. And, all this supposes that we stop putting C02 into the air. This is the biggest problem and it’s not happening. Geoengineering is back in the news recently in articles published by the on-line magazine Yale Environment 360 and by The Economist .

In the photo above you can see a “dead zone”. It’s a zone of water off our coasts that contains insufficient oxygen for fish and other life to exist in it. These dead zones are caused by pollution, runoff and too much carbon in the water, because the ocean is a big carbon sink too, and it’s nearly saturated with carbon. So these dead zones are popping up all over the world and they are getting bigger every year. Geoengineering seems like it might be necessary after all, if we are ever to stop the spread of these dead zones and to get carbon out of the air.

Geoengineering is not necessarily a crazy idea by itself, but when combined with this fact it is: we could avoid it by acting now on climate change, — but we won’t. Endless meetings around the world is not “action”. Action would involve an immediate cap on C02 with a target date that might seem impossible but isn’t, because we’d do it. But our government doesn’t have the cojones to do that, so scientists must work on ways to reflect sunlight on a planetary scale in case of an “emergency”. Quick, planet-wide sunlight reflection. That’s really the crazy part.

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We all keep hearing about climate change (or global warming) and we think, well why doesn’t someone do something about it? The fact is, governments really aren’t doing anything substantial about the quickly-rising C02 in the atmosphere even though they have known it was happening for a long time. People within the U.S. military have been warning about the destablizing effects of climate change for years, publicly since at least 2005. Yet our governments are not taking bold action to stop C02 emissions when they very well could. Why? It’s still seen as politically “dangerous” to political careers to act on climate change. So governments send envoys to attend endless meetings about it instead. The envoys then return to their respective countries and report, and then nothing happens except more plans for the next round of meetings. When the Poznan, Poland meeting ended in December, about all anyone agreed on was some technological ideas, and deforestation, which hasn’t stopped, and to meet again in Copenhagen this December.

What if they all keep meeting and meeting and no real action is ever taken? Well, then, it’s goodbye life on earth as we know it. GHG (greenhouse gasses) continue to rise, the weather becomes more unpredictable, and the planet approaches more dangerous tipping points that threaten all life on earth.

One  argument being made by so-called reasonable people is that the economy world-wide is in such dire straits that we can’t really focus on anything but economies at the moment. That’s wrong for at least two major reasons. Fighting climate change seriously would create tens of thousands of jobs, if not more. And no one can afford to ignore the largest threat to life on the planet that we have ever faced. The economy, war and terrorism are big problems, but they are nothing compared to climate change and the fact that humans are bringing it on. Once the magic amount of C02 is in the atmosphere, it’s probably not coming out. Even if we can find a way to remove it, we can’t return ice sheets to Greenland or the Antarctic if they melt and the sea levels rise as a result. That’s permanent. How many major world cities are on coastlines that will be submerged by rising sea levels? A lot of them.

Why isn’t the media talking about this more? Because they are run by large corporations who don’t want their brand or their products threatened by regulations that may come with fighting climate change. The media has an obligation to inform the public about climate change and they are failing dismally. Most scientists know that they aren’t getting their message across very well, with the media or without it. There is always Youtube, of course, but only people interested in this subject search for those types of videos in the first place. ( I will have another post following this one about the problem with communication.)    I will keep writing this and providing evidence until people start reading this, commenting, and deciding the problem is not only worth their notice but worth spreading the word. Apparently, not nearly enough people yet know about climate change. I have found this to be true among people I talk to, so obviously, we have to do something to change that. And as we figure that out, the situation becomes more serious every week.

Last weekend, the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) met and featured several very good speakers.   One was Christopher Field who said a few things reprinted below.

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This is certainly sounds like it should be good news. Several CEOs from the electricity industry tell us in a new report that all the energy technology we need is already here and recommended that we pursue coal research and development with lots of money. But in this report (download link below) they include in those technologies something called “clean coal” — something that doesn’t exist. No plant burning coal in the United States is clean. They all emit mercury and other pollution, and they all store waste products as “ash” that contains known carcinogens and is even worse than the airborne pollution.

In this report, the electricity CEOs actually admit there is no such thing as clean coal now and won’t be for a very long time. The estimate is 2050. Here is the summary that appeared on Carbon Control News.

“A group of CEOs from some of the world’s largest electricity generators released a detailed report at international climate talks in Poland that claims “enough low-carbon technologies exist to help the world avert damaging climate change.” But strong policy decisions supporting rapid deployment of pre-sequestered clean-coal and new nuclear are needed as soon as possible to make a difference by the middle of the century, according to the report.. . .

The group asserts that aggressive government policies are needed immediately to implement these scenarios: “In the coming decades the world will need to double today’s power generation. We in the power sector have a strong opportunity to take a lead in combating climate change. But we cannot do this alone. We need to work with governments and other stakeholders to find solutions. We realize some of these changes will take many years, but there is no time to lose and it is only through combined efforts that we will succeed in creating a low-carbon, sustainable energy future.”

We have to do much more than “make a difference” by the middle of the century. By 2050, we have to have the plan for no more carbon finalized, implemented and in place. There will be no half-measures by then. And that begs the question, What exactly is “pre-sequestered clean-coal”? It’s not mentioned in the report, according to a search I did. The report states that the G8 plus China, India and South Korea are committed to a plan to build 20 large-scale CCS projects by 2020. This was decided in June 2008. So the U.S. is asking for some of this money in the current stimulus bill. “CCS” is carbon capture and sequestration — a technology which doesn’t yet exist. It’s been conceived of and planned for, but it’s not been built yet. To depend on something that hasn’t yet been built, or even tested, would be the height of foolishness! Especially when we have so many other forms of energy available to us now. For instance, wind power is booming in the United States right now. Solar power is also on track to be highly developed and popular in 2009.

I would say “never trust a report on carbon emissions written by the electricity CEOs” but I won’t, because right in the report they admit that CCS is only an unrealized dream. The report says:

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