Is America becoming a third world country with first world emissions?

Arianna Huffington admits that asking if America is becoming a third world country is meant to be provocative, but she's clearly distressed by "a nation where the rich get richer, the middle class is in free fall, and the education system and infrastructure are crumbling." Her biggest distress is over the idea that "the American dream" - that our children will have a better life than we have - has vanished.

But what is a "better life?" I saw Ms. Huffington at the Economist Magazine's Innovation Summit, a portion of which focused on whether innovation will save us from the various global disasters that await us in areas such as disease, water, and of course climate change. The venue turned into shootout between optimists and pessimists, all of whom are well known and hyper-intelligent, over whether innovation is part of the problem or part of the solution.

Representing the pessimists were Jared Diamond, author of Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive and Paul Saffo, a Stanford-based futurist who once said, "There's less than a 50% chance that the United States will exist as a nation by the middle of this century. And that is actually the good news." Professor Diamond pointed out that unsustainable consumption rates will be our undoing, leading to growing inequality, resource scarcity, and climate related problems. The root cause of all this is our misperception that higher consumption rates equates to a higher standard of living. The Professor points out that much of Europe has been busy disproving this standard of living/consumption connection. The average per capita carbon footprint in Europe is less than half of that in the US, which seems to support this viewpoint.

This led one audience member to put the idea to Ms. Huffington that maybe the US should become a third world country.

On the other side of the debate were the optimistic technologists, lead by the prolific inventor Ray Kurzweil, who points to the dramatically increasing price-performance of phones and computers, to assert that innovation in solar energy, battery storage (and other areas such as water purification, hydroponic food production) will solve both scarcity and environmental issues long before they become critical. His underlying message is that we just need to produce and consume smarter, not less.

Both sides support the idea that the current energy and resource intensive industrial revolution is playing itself out. What's beyond it is less clear.

My seat neighbor (who turned out to be a well known CEO) and I got into a discussion at the break about the role of common sense. He mentioned that in China, firms such as Procter and Gamble are rethinking and redesigning their product lines both to accommodate the needs of Chinese households, and the resource base and ecological needs of the country. In a country where middle class is a relatively emerging idea, will it be created in a more pragmatic and sustainable fashion? From a climate perspective, there's no other viable option.

But back to the US....perhaps what's crumbling is not the middle class, but our definition of what middle class means. If the American Dream is about a better life for our kids, than maybe the focus of innovation should be on a more commonsensical definition of a better life. Cheap energy or clean energy? Big cars or reliable transportation systems? Better 'stuff' or better relationships?

The resistance to cap and trade and other flavors of climate legislation is primarily based on the notion that it will lead to a reduction in our standard of living. But that's a false choice. I like to think it's possible that we can innovate our way to a less consumption-heavy footprint that increases our standard of living. We'd have plenty left over for education and infrastructure.

Photo courtesy of the Economist Magazine. All rights reserved.

Alice Pays a Carbon Tax in Wonderland

By Dave Rochlin - originally posted on care2.com

Alice, the Mad Hatter, and the Red Queen aren't waiting around for the climate bill. According to a recent piece in the Wall Street Journal, Disney is making the company’s business units pay an internal tax based on how much carbon they use.

Alice in Wonderland's filmmakers needed to think about everything from the commute miles for Johnny Depp's makeup artists, to buying local/organic for the on-set buffets. The more emissions they reduced or avoided, the less they had to pay into Disney's internal carbon fund.

"It would be so nice if something made sense for a change."
-Alice
What an amazingly refreshing approach. Assigning a true cost to business activities is the best way to encourage greener behavior, and using the money for mitigation balances these activities with an equal measure of environmental stewardship, at least in the case of carbon. I particularly like that each business unit makes their own decisions on the feasibility and economic practicality of reducing vs. offsetting specific activities, rather than being shoe-horned into a one size fits all policy.

“Say what you mean and mean what you say.”
- Cheshire Cat
The key to this sort of voluntary program is transparency on both the measurement and reduction/offsetting sides of the equation. To be credible, Disney will need to share much more of their eco-info in their corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports. The program leaves lots of unanswered questions: How did they calculate each business unit's footprint? What were the organizational 'boundaries'? What is the internal price of carbon? Where does the money go? They have typically partnered with very well respected NGOs, so I suspect that they are doing a reasonable job, but when it comes to corporate behavior, show me...don't just tell me.

It's very easy to take more than nothing.
- Mad Hatter
CEO Bob Iger sees a strong need for Disney to practice environmental stewardship. In a recent interview, he pointed out that it is an "Issue of interest" to consumers, employees and shareholders. But, as Iger was asked, can a company that's focused on leisure travel and consumption be green? In other words, isn't Disney inherently a fundamentally eco-flawed enterprise? On this point, Iger was very clear an unapologetic: "Life is to be enjoyed....we don't feel guilty about growth, but we can grow in a responsible way...At least the consumption we promote in the future is better for the environment."

Be what you would seem to be -- or, if you'd like it put more simply -- Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.
- The Duchess
So is Disney the kind of firm that can lead us into a green tomorrowland, or are they doomed to forever encourage us to take another bite out of the poison apple? What do you think?

Photo: Official Alice in Wonderland Wallpaper Image, copyright Disney Enterprises. All rights reserved.

Beware the Nine Billion Ton Hamster

By Dave Rochlin - originally posted on care2.com

My friends at the Global Footprint Network sent me a link to a video which asks, "What if hamsters grew non-stop, the way we expect economies to?" The answer: We would have nine billion ton hamsters.

Check out the video: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqwd_u6HkMo)



Here's the transcript:

From birth to puberty, a hamster doubles its weight each week.

If it didn't stop when mature, as animals do, and continued to double,
on its first birthday we would be staring at a nine billion ton hamster.

This hamster could eat all of the corn produced annually worldwide in a single day, and still be hungry.

There is a reason why, in nature, things grow in size only to a certain point.

So why do most economists and politicians think that the economy
can grow forever and ever and ever?

Personally, I think this massive hamster should be grass fed.

The spot was made by the New Economics Foundation (NEF), a self proclaimed think-and-do-tank. While some of their ideas are intriguing - such as using a 'happiness index' and focusing on 'social return on investment', it's hard to advocate putting the brakes on economic growth when 80% of the planet's population still lives on $10 per day or less, and over two billion live on less than $2 per day.

Innovation and economic growth have increased life expectancies and quality of life, and lifted many out of poverty. It isn't decreasing economic activity we need to focus on, but rather increasing resource productivity. Let's uncouple economic growth from resource use and environmental degradation. What does this mean? Renewable energy rather than fossil fuel based sources, higher productivity, green jobs, smarter "cradle to cradle" design, doing more with less, and focusing on reuse and recycle (as well as reducing.) There's a lot of room to improve, if we simply decide to be smart about it. If we challenged automakers (or just university students) to design a car that used 50% less materials, lasted twice as along, and would get double the gas mileage, they could do so pretty easily. But we just don't adequately value those attributes (yet).

The NEF folks want to put on the economic brakes because they don't believe that the world will improve in efficiency and conservation as fast as it increases use of resources and growth. Some of their data on planetary boundaries is pretty scary and compelling. But with adequate incentives and market signals (such as a price on carbon, and continued rising energy and raw commodity costs) I think they will be proven wrong. There's a second 'green revolution' on the way, which will be driven by scarcity and environmental/regulatory caps.

Even better, let's grow the economy by putting economic value on ecosystem services, such as keeping the water clean, forests planted, and soil and air untainted. The World Resource Institute estimates that these services - what they call "Mother Nature’s life-support services" are worth twice the value of the global GDP. If we start to value and pay for these, including them in GDP, we can have our cake and eat it too!

Is it time to starve the hamster, or should we just harness the energy of that massive hamster wheel she'll be spinning on? Is triple bottom line growth (people, planet, profits) possible? Can growth be good?

Climate Change Leaders On the Defensive: How Did We Get Here?

By Dave Rochlin - originally posted on care2.com

It was an interesting week for the climate movement. Al Gore published on Op Ed piece in the New York Times entitled "We Can't Wish Away Climate Change", and The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a statement that they intend to establish an independent committee to review IPCC procedures. Clearly, some of the most visible players in the climate movement are on the defensive. With only 35% of Americans now convinced that climate change is caused by human activity, it's no wonder.

But how did we get here? Gore points to three causes:

1. Mistakes were made.
The Op Ed piece acknowledges that "scientific enterprise will never be completely free of mistakes", and alludes to both the climategate emails and errors in reporting on the threat to the Himalayas that I blogged about a few weeks ago. Worse than the mistakes, however has been the IPCC's refusal to take responsibility. The statement by the IPCC acknowledges criticism without admitting error, maintaining the aura of immaturity surrounding the organization. As Gore points out, "What is important is that the overwhelming consensus on global warming remains unchanged" (which my organization agrees with.) The IPCC should more openly admit to, learn from, and respond to errors.

2. Opposition is getting organized.
The last few years of discussion on the solutions to the climate problem have made it clear that the heaviest emitting industries are going to feel some negative impact through regulation or caps. As Gore says, "some industries and companies whose business plans are dependent on unrestrained pollution of the atmospheric commons have become ever more entrenched. They are ferociously fighting against the mildest regulation — just as tobacco companies blocked constraints on the marketing of cigarettes for four decades after science confirmed the link of cigarettes to diseases of the lung and the heart." This is a common tactic, and many of these firms have sizable war chests to fund both explicit public opinion campaigns, as well as dubiously ethical stealth efforts.

3. Right wing media is gaining influence.
I'm not sure I agree with this point, but Gore points out that "changes in America’s political system — including the replacement of newspapers and magazines by television as the dominant medium of communication — conferred powerful advantages on wealthy advocates of unrestrained markets and weakened advocates of legal and regulatory reforms. Some news media organizations now present showmen masquerading as political thinkers who package hatred and divisiveness as entertainment. And as in times past, that has proved to be a potent drug in the veins of the body politic. Their most consistent theme is to label as “socialist” any proposal to reform exploitive behavior in the marketplace." He is giving FOX News far too much credit.

Looking at the issue from a consumer and populist perspective, I suspect that there is simply a massive underestimation of what it will take to undo decades of messaging and behavior reinforcing that cheap energy is an unlimited resource, international cooperation should automatically take a back seat to corporate profits, and that unrestrained consumerism is both a right and a virtue. It is more than just an inconvenient truth to discover that the old way is the wrong way. Change to deeply ingrained social institutions is seldom easy, and often generational.

Senator Lindsey Graham seems to understand this. As he told Thomas Friedman, “I have been to enough college campuses to know if you are 30 or younger this climate issue is not a debate. It’s a value. These young people grew up with recycling and a sensitivity to the environment — and the world will be better off for it."

Gore and Bono, photo copyright: http://www.flickr.com/photos/worldeconomicforum/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Is the UN climate chief abandoning a sinking ship?

By Dave Rochlin - originally posted on care2.com

The controversial former UN ambassador John Bolton famously said "If the U.N. secretary building in New York lost 10 stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference."

Now Yvo de Boer, the UN's executive secretary of the Framework Convention on Climate Change, is resigning, saying in a statement that “I have always maintained that while governments provide the necessary policy framework, the real solutions must come from business."

An interesting comment from a lifelong bureaucrat.

The Copenhagen round in December has been described as everything from a "debacle" (UK Guardian) to "chaotic" (NY Times). But is this a failure of the UN, or of Mr. DeBoer's management of the talks? The world's major emitter nations came to the table prepared to commit to substantial reductions, there was near unanimous acknowledgment that we need to set a 450 ppm target to avoid massive global ecological disaster and social injustice, and hundreds of NGOs had engaged in protracted public awareness/education campaigns to create populist enthusiasm for climate action. Businesses have also been preparing to prove de Boer right - by working hard on solutions to address the almost certain need to conform to a new world order with low carbon economic policies.

As de Boer himself said, "We were about an inch away from a formal agreement...it was basically in our grasp, but it didn't happen. So that was a pity."

Just two months later, we have major firms (including BP and Caterpillar) bailing out of the US Climate Action Partnership, a stalled climate bill, sinking public belief in climate change, and the US chamber of commerce again attacking the EPA. A pity indeed.

What was needed in Copenhagen was strong and competent leadership, and a pragmatic and realistic acknowledgment that a half dozen super powers were really the ones in a position to get a deal done...or to block it. Bolton understood this, as does President Obama, who flew in on the last day and brokered a last minute accord among the largest emitters.

I for one believe the the UN can play an important role in facilitating coordinated global policy on this borderless issue. The Montreal Protocol, which halted ozone depletion, is a shining example of what is possible. And the UN- created CDM mechanism is a potentially powerful tool to fight climate change while improving livelihoods through financing projects such as cookstoves, forestry, and innovative energy retrofits.

We have another chance at the next meetings in Cancun later this year, although the momentum and build up to Copenhagen will not be replicated. My advice for the next UN climate chief? Most of the work for Copenhagen should have been done on a bilateral or multilateral basis before the meeting opened, whether that is politically popular or not -- the twelve day mosh pit approach does not work. And it is time to dismiss Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the IPCC, the UN's climate science arm. Under Pachauri's leadership, the IPCC's credibility, and therefore the credibility of the science underlying climate change has become tarnished.

Tough decisions? Perhaps. But the issue is too important not to take decisive action. As the saying goes; "When the going gets tough, the tough get going"...while the not so tough simply go. So Mr. de Boer, thank you for your service. But no one said your job would be easy. On an issue this big, we need someone at the helm who can make this work, or at least is willing to go down with the ship.

Photo adapted from http://www.flickr.com/photos/x-ray_delta_one/ / CC BY-SA 2.0 and http://www.flickr.com/photos/worldeconomicforum/ / CC BY-SA 2.0 under a CC license. All rights reserved.

Is the nuclear option really the answer to climate change?

By Dave Rochlin - originally posted on care2.com

In President Obama's recent state of the union speech, he called for "building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country." While he specifically called out what he referred to as clean energy, the speech made no mention of renewables, and gave only token acknowledgment to the idea of conservation. Is the nuclear option really our best option?

The issue of expanding nuclear power is a divisive one, even within the environmental movement. Greenpeace responded to the President's speech by saying:

"Nuclear power is neither safe nor clean. There is no such thing as a "safe" dose of radiation and just because nuclear pollution is invisible doesn't mean it's "clean." For years, nuclear plants have been leaking radioactive waste from underground pipes and radioactive waste pools into the ground water at sites across the nation."

To prove their point, they highlighted a recent New York Times article covering the rapidly rising levels of radioactive tritium in the groundwater surrounding Vermont’s sole nuclear power plant. This has raised doubts in the minds of many former supporters of the plant.

On the other side of the issue, one of the co-founder of Greenpeace - Patrick Moore - is now co-chairman (along with former Bush-era EPA administrator Christie Todd Whitman) of the Nuclear Energy Institute's Clean and Safe Energy Coalition.

As Moore told Wired Magazine:

"We failed to distinguish between the beneficial uses of the technology and the evil uses of the technology...Greenpeace is against fossil fuel, nuclear and hydroelectric power. Those three technologies produce over 99 percent of world energy. What kind of a path to a sustainable future is that? We're bringing people at the municipal and state levels together to help convince the American public that nuclear energy is a key technology for the future."

He also told another interviewer:

"Even though nuclear does create waste, that waste is very successfully contained – it is not leaking out, it is not harming anybody. On the other hand, emissions from fossil fuel combustion for energy and transportation are harming people."

A few other environmental champions have also take this positon.

But while Mr. Moore declares success, is he wrong to ignore Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, the 100,000 gallon radioactive coolant leak at TVAs Sequyah plant, or the smaller incidents in Japan, France and the former Soviet Union? Or are the rest of us burying our head in the sand about the realistic options for reducing fossil fuel consumption?

My own views are best captured by a recent episode of The Simpson's, which describes nuclear power as:

"The cleanest energy there is, except once in a while, but then lookout."

That pretty much says it all.

There's been amazing progress in solar, wind, geothermal and other renewable technologies, and conservation and forest preservation have tremendous potential. But apparently the lure of energy that is clean and "too cheap to meter" continues to divert attention from these ideas. Or perhaps the President is offering his opponents a uranium-enriched olive branch in order to get a climate bill passed. But with the track record and unanswered questions about storage of nuclear waste, I don't think that "mostly safe and clean" is good enough. Let's at least try to find and fund some better ideas.

IPCC Goofs, Himalayan Glaciers Get a 300 Year Reprieve

By Dave Rochlin - originally posted on care2.com

Like many, I am deeply, deeply concerned about the impending impact of climate change, a Sword of Damocles that hangs over hundreds of millions of people and thousands of species. But sometimes backing the IPCC (UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is a little like being a supporter of the Chicago Cubs or the Chudley Cannons. Nobel prize or not, the IPCC seems to be their own worst enemy, and determined to test our resolve.

For those of you who are not familiar with the IPCC , it is "the leading body for the assessment of climate change, established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) to provide the world with a clear scientific view on the current state of climate change and its potential environmental and socio-economic consequences."

After a series of stolen emails (aka 'climategate') revealed an immaturity more suited to a prepubescent facebook crowd than a team of the world's smartest climate scientists, the IPCC has now revealed that the Himalayan glaciers will in fact not be dissapearing by 2035, as they reported in the 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report on Climate Change, and what they really meant to say was that they may be gone by 2350 (whoops!). What's worse, the transposed number was reportedly sourced from a 1999 article in New Scientist, rather than peer reviewed research.

There is such an overwhelming amount of evidence in support of the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that this is really of little consequence. And mistakes do happen, even for groups of hundreds of scientists working collaboratively. But this still pretty scary: The Himalayas hold the planet's largest body of ice outside the polar caps -- this is no small ice shelf we're talking about. And the world's governments are relying on the IPCC findings to justify putting in place major changes that will affect virtually every aspect of the world's economy.

Historically, I would characterize climate science as an obscure field, populated by wonks and number jockeys who would prefer to quietly build computer models, leaving some ex-jock weatherman to get all the credit on television. Basically the Peter Parker's of the science world. But like Parker with his accidental Spiderman powers, they have suddenly been thrown into the limelight -- unwilling superheroes. As Parker's Uncle Ben said, "With great power comes great responsibility." Climate change is no longer an academic exercise, and it's time for the IPCC to start doing better.

Photo copyright http://www.flickr.com/photos/ilker/ / CC BY 2.0