Geoffrey Lean, editor of the Independent in London, writing about the new international report about global warming puts it this way: “A world dying but can we unite to save it?”

Summarizing some of the findings of the IPCC, Lean writes:

Humanity is rapidly turning the seas acid through the same pollution that causes global warming, the world’s governments and top scientists agreed yesterday. The process – thought to be the most profound change in the chemistry of the oceans for 20 million years – is expected both to disrupt the entire web of life of the oceans and to make climate change worse.

The warning is just one of a whole series of alarming conclusions in a new report published by the official Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which last month shared the Nobel Peace Prize with former US vice president Al Gore.

He kind of puts the recent World Series victory of my beloved Boston Red Sox in some perspective. Not to say I’m not thrilled that we re-signed Curt Schilling and Mike Lowell, but I’d like my friends at Penguins United to survive … Not to mention the billions of people threatened by rising seas and heatwaves and killer storms.

Achim Steiner, the executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), said yesterday: “The report has put a spotlight on a threat to the marine environment that the world has hardly yet realized. The threat is immense as it can fundamentally alter the life of the seas, reducing the productivity of the oceans, while reinforcing global warming.”
emissions of all the “greenhouse gas” pollutants that cause global warming increased 70 per cent between 1970 and 2004 alone, it reports, adding that levels of carbon dioxide, the most important one, in the atmosphere now “exceed by far” anything that the Earth has experienced in the past 650,000 years … “

I took a look at the Summary for Policy Makers that the scientists prepared. Here are some quotes:

Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is evident from observations of increases in global air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level …

numerous long-term changes in climate have been observed. These include changes in arctic temperatures and ice, widespread changes in precipitation amounts, ocean salimity, wind patterns and aspects of extreme weather including droughts, heavy precipitation, heat waves and the intensity of tropical cyclones …

Continued greenhouse gas emissions at or above current rates would cause further warming and induce many changes in the global climate system during the 21st century that would very likely be largely than those observed during the 20th century ….

Anthropogenic warming and sea level rise would continue for centuries due to the time scales associated with climate processes and feedbacks, even if greenhouse gas concentrations were to be stabilised …

I am not a scientist obviously but this is all very scary. If I understand this last paragraph, it means that even if we drastically cut back on emissions of greenhouse gases - a very very big if - we are still in the middle of experiencing the growing effects of all the stuff we’ve done in the last hundreds of years.

Each time we see a new report, the data seems to suggest that we have underestimated the effects of the climate crisis.

Global warming’s foes rarely cite ski resorts and golf courses among its victims.

But, though they may be less adorable than penguins and less gripping than melting ice caps, resort owners and tour operators will be directly and strongly affected by climate change. Indeed, few livelihoods are more dependent on the weather, other than farmers’ …

“The entire tourism product will be affected,” said Geoffrey Lipman, assistant secretary general of the United Nations World Tourism Organization, “Every destination has a climate-related component.”

Imagine a ski resort whose chairlifts are in the lower reaches of mountains without decent snow. Or a scuba club whose reefs succumbed to warmer and stormier seas. Or a golfing hotel in a district where water shortages made it impossible to keep fairways green.

Here in B-town it hasn’t really snowed yet and we just had our turkey.

Could I be living in a dying world?

So I guess someone has decided we are Generation Eco. Well maybe I’m too old, and maybe live too far East … But according to the Sacramento Bee, in Sacramento, CA, Generation Eco is out to save the world:

Environment Club, Arthur Butler Elementary School - Photo: Lezlie Sterling

These kids are for real:

Three of the sixth-graders — Helen Kesthely, Brian Tran and Mac Heravian — started planning this club ages ago, way back in fifth grade. They were inspired by an article they read in class about kids in Sweden who raised money and bought land in the South American rain forest to preserve it.

But this club is going even more global.

“At first, we were just going to buy rain forest, but then we decided, ‘Why not make it (about) the entire environment?’ ” explains Helen.

“We’re going to try to stop air pollution, and then make various newsletters and permission slips,” says Brian, another club founder, giving a shout-out to the importance of administrative as well as environmental goals.

Not sure I get the bit about permission slips, or if the school has told them what they’re really up against but this is a really good start.

Speaking about what we’re up against, have you ever listened to those great recordings made by Musicians for Safe Energy at Madison Square Garden. Bruce Springsteen, James Taylor, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne - the list goes on and on. Anyway they did these concerts to raise money to fight against nuclear power. And for several decades, the nuclear power industry was dying and dead in the U.S. The almost fatal accident at Three Mile Island, nuclear power plants built on top of earthquake fault lines, Chernobyl. the fact that there is no safe place to store the nuclear waste, transporting nuclear fuel rods by trucks through communities all over America - the list of scary things about nuclear energy goes on and on.

But hey it’s a new world and even Barack Obama thinks there is a place for nuclear energy in a global warming world. So green boys and girls, keep your eyes open. We may find ourselves with more and more nukes if we don’t watch out.

The MUSE musicians have returned. Here they are:

With more than 80 percent of its electricity generated by nuclear plants, France sees itself as a model for successfully putting the atom at work toward producing carbon-free and relatively cheap power.
More than two decades after Chernobyl shook the world’s faith in nuclear power, France is vying to lead a worldwide revival of the nuclear industry as worries about global warming and rising energy prices have brought fission back in fashion.
President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has described nuclear power as the “energy of the future”, stood up at the United Nations last month and delivered what was tantamount to a sales pitch for French nuclear technology.
“France is willing to help any country which wants to acquire civilian nuclear power. An energy source for the future should not be the preserve of western countries and out of reach of eastern countries,” Sarkozy declared.

Greenpeace demonstration, Flamanville - Photo: Jean-Paul Barbier, AFP

Money. Money. Money.

There’s gold in them thar hills! And melting ice can mean money.

Jad Mouawad writes about the latest developments as the Arctic ice recedes:

For a quarter-century, energy executives were tantalized by vast quantities of natural gas in one of the world’s least hospitable places — 90 miles off Norway’s northern coast, beneath the Arctic Ocean …

The other day, on an island just offshore, a giant yellow flame illuminated the sky here. It was just a temporary flare for excess gas, but it signaled a new era in energy production.

Across the bay from this small fishing town, where reindeer wander the streets, one of the world’s most advanced natural gas plants is coming to life.

Within weeks, gas will start crossing the ocean in specially designed ships, feeding into the pipeline network for the American East Coast. Before Christmas, furnaces in Brooklyn and stoves in Washington will be burning the gas. It will be the first commercial energy production from waters north of the Arctic Circle.

In Kazakhstan, petroleum engineers are braving wild temperature swings in the shallow waters of the Caspian Sea to tap the biggest oil discovery of the last 30 years. They are drilling wells six miles deep in the Gulf of Mexico. And on the island of Sakhalin, off far eastern Russia, they have drilled horizontal wells through miles of rock to produce oil from a stretch of ocean notable for giant icebergs.

Cargo ship Hammerfest, Norway Photo: Geir Jenssen

Last year alone, companies spent $200 billion developing new energy projects worldwide, according to the study by the consulting firms John S. Herold Inc. and Harrison Lovegrove — an amount larger than the economies of 147 countries.

Back to Generation Eco. And the dilemma we are facing:

The first meeting’s discussion includes ideas on how children can reduce air pollution individually, including going outside and playing instead of watching TV after school, telling parents to use the carpool lane and bugging them to buy a hybrid car. (This last suggestion may have been encouraged by the global- warming movie “Arctic Tale,” which reportedly closes with a child saying, “If your mom and dad buy a hybrid car, you’ll make it easier for polar bears to get around.”)

Mac Heravian knows that such requests aren’t always received well.

“If your family is looking for a car, I recommend a hybrid car,” Mac says. “If your family tells you, ‘It’s none of your business,’ just leave it, ’cause I don’t want to get anyone in trouble.”

Well there’s trouble and then there’s Trouble. I mean TROUBLE. ECOLOGICAL RED trouble.

Jeremy Lovell of Reuters reports:

The world moved into “ecological overdraft” on Saturday, the point at which human consumption exceeds the ability of the earth to sustain it in any year and goes into the red, the New Economics Foundation think-tank said.

Ecological Debt Day this year is three days earlier than in 2006 which itself was three days earlier than in 2005. NEF said the date had moved steadily backwards every year since humanity began living beyond its environmental means in the 1980s …

If everyone in the world had the same consumption rates as in the United States it would take 5.3 planet earths to support them, NEF said, noting that the figure was 3.1 for France and Britain, 3.0 for Spain, 2.5 for Germany and 2.4 for Japan.

But if everyone emulated China, which is building a coal-fired power station every five days to feed its booming economy, it would take only 0.9 of a planet.

Hong Kong Lights

Sometimes I try to bury my head and turn my mind off. The Red Sox help except this past week when they melted as much and as fast as the arctic ice. And despite all my efforts, the real world wouldn’t go away.
It’s been more than a week since my last post. Thankfully Josh Beckett and Big Papi prevailed and there is renewed hope.

There’s a lot of green news. From clotheslines to green supermarkets to WalMart’s compact fluorescent bulbs to green taxis.

Let’s take them one at a time.

Photo - Shune Pottier

The Wall Street Journal profiles a fight between an ecologically-minded housewife with a clothesline versus homeowners in a development in Bend, Oregon. An epic battle. You’d think with a healthcare crisis, a real war in Iraq, the falling American dollar, and the recent slump of the Red Sox that people wouldn’t have the time or energy for this, but then again, isn’t what the Founding Fathers fought so hard for?

To Susan Taylor, it was a perfect time to hang her laundry out to dry. The 55-year-old mother and part-time nurse strung a clothesline to a tree in her backyard, pinned up some freshly washed flannel sheets — and, with that, became a renegade.

The regulations of the subdivision in which Ms. Taylor lives effectively prohibit outdoor clotheslines. In a move that has torn apart this otherwise tranquil community, the development’s managers have threatened legal action. To the developer and many residents, clotheslines evoke the urban blight they sought to avoid by settling in the Oregon mountains.

“This bombards the senses,” interior designer Joan Grundeman says of her neighbor’s clothesline. “It can’t possibly increase property values and make people think this is a nice neighborhood.”

In Augusta, Maine:

Hannaford Bros. Co.’s plan calls for a supermarket so green that plants will be grown on part of its roof to add insulation and control stormwater. The store is to be built on a former high-school site in the capital of a state that prides itself on environmental leadership.

Photo - Hyungwon Kang/REUTERS

On to WalMart:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said on Thursday that it has launched its own private label of compact fluorescent lightbulbs and is now selling the “Great Value” energy efficient bulbs in more than 3,000 stores.

“The introduction of our Great Value bulbs make CFLs a more accessible option for our shoppers as we strive to sell 100 million CFLs by the end of 2007,” said Wal-Mart General Merchandise Manager Andy Barron in a statement.

Meanwhile, close to our nation’s capitol, people who don’t want to take public transportation will have a green option. Eco-friendly taxis are coming to Arlington.

The Arlington County Board this week authorized a new taxi company to operate with an all-hybrid fleet of 50 vehicles and gave rival companies permission to add 35 hybrids …
The green taxi expansion is part of a county campaign known as Fresh AIRE, or Arlington Initiative to Reduce Emissions, which aims to cut production of greenhouse gases from county buildings and vehicles by 10 percent by 2012 …
Arlington recently added eight heavy-duty buses that run on natural gas and are equipped with bike racks …
Many taxi drivers criticized the board’s decision, saying that although they too want to promote good environmental stewardship, adding more cabs to the streets will make it harder for drivers to earn an adequate living. Former taxi driver Lou Gatti displayed photographs showing that cabs clog many Arlington streets.

Even if we’re not so smart, Mercedes is hoping we’ll buy the Smart Car:

The 1,800-pound “micro-car” — more than 3 feet shorter than fellow European pipsqueak the Mini Cooper — is likely to be the smallest thing on four wheels when it hits the U.S. car market in early 2008. Produced in France by the Mercedes Car Group, the “Fortwo” model has been on a 50-city U.S. tour this summer, including Detroit, Smart USA’s corporate headquarters.

Its base price is $12,000, and it’s hard to beat the fuel efficiency of about 40 miles per gallon. If any car can squeeze into Manhattan parking spots, this is it. And Smart is hip: The Museum of Modern Art has displayed it as an innovative, stylish solution to two practical problems: urban crowding and diminishing energy.

So what to do with all this good news and the Red Sox revivial. Well I’ll tell you what not to do! DO NOT READ THOMAS FRIEDMAN’S COLUMN “DOHA AND DALIAN.” What was it they said in the 1960s? Bummer! Like in major bummer! Because if Tom Friedman is right, we’re going to need a lot more than clotheslines, an eco-friendly supermarket or two or three, and a flock of green taxis. I, of course, haven’t made it to Doha or Dalian, so I’ll have to take his word on this. So here goes:

Doha is the capital of Qatar, a tiny state east of Saudi Arabia. Dalian is in northeast China and is one of China’s Silicon Valleys because of its proliferation of software parks and its dynamic, techie mayor, Xia Deren. What was stunning is that I hadn’t been to either city for more than three years, and I barely recognized either one …

Construction Doha - Photo: Paul Cowan

In Doha, since I was last there, a skyline that looks like a mini-Manhattan has sprouted from the desert. Whatever construction cranes are not in China must be in Doha today. This once sleepy harbor now has a profile of skyscrapers, thanks to a huge injection of oil and gas revenues. Dalian, with six million people, already had a mini-Manhattan when I was last here. It seems to have grown two more since — including a gleaming new convention complex built on a man-made peninsula …

If you want to know why I remain a climate skeptic — not a skeptic about climate change, but a skeptic that we’re going to be able to mitigate it — it’s partly because of Doha and Dalian. Can you imagine how much energy all these new skyscrapers in just two cities you’ve never heard of are going to consume and how much CO2 they are going to emit? …

Yes, “Americans” are popping up all over now — people who once lived low-energy lifestyles but by dint of oil wealth or hard work are now moving into U.S.-style apartments, cars and appliances.

Our planet cannot tolerate so many “Americans,” unless we take the lead and change what it means to be an American in energy terms. Attention Kmart shoppers: the world consumed about 66.6 million barrels a day of oil in 1990. We’re now consuming 83 million barrels a day

“Demand for oil has grown 22 percent in the U.S. since 1990. China’s oil demand has grown nearly 200 percent in this same period,” Margo Oge, director of the Environmental Protection Agency’s office of transportation and air quality, told the Tianjin China Green Car conference that I attended. “By 2030, the global thirst for oil is forecast to increase by another 40 percent if we maintain business as usual.” Such an appetite would devour every incremental green initiative we make.

So on the one hand the environment movement has made such a big deal about individual responsibility. Me and you and even Big Papi has to recycle, change our lightbulbs, shop green, eat green, be green, but all the while bigger entities - the Department of Defence, massive corporations, Doha, Dalian are spitting out energy so much faster than we can save it. What’s up with that?

Tom Friedman spells it out:

Hey, I’m really glad you switched to long-lasting compact fluorescent light bulbs in your house. But the growth in Doha and Dalian ate all your energy savings for breakfast. I’m glad you bought a hybrid car. But Doha and Dalian devoured that before noon. I am glad that the U.S. Congress is debating whether to bring U.S. auto mileage requirements up to European levels by 2020. Doha and Dalian will have those gains for lunch — maybe just the first course. I’m glad that solar and wind power are “soaring” toward 2 percent of U.S. energy generation, but Doha and Dalian will devour all those gains for dinner. I am thrilled that you are now doing the “20 green things” suggested by your favorite American magazine. Doha and Dalian will snack on them all, like popcorn before bedtime.

But, as I said, this is not just about “them.” It is still very much about us. Peter Bakker is the chief executive of TNT, the biggest express delivery company in Europe. The Dow Jones Sustainability Index 2007 just listed TNT as the No. 1 company in terms of energy and environmental practices. Mr. Bakker, whom I met in China, told me this story:

“We operate 35,000 trucks and 48 aircraft in Europe. We just bought two Boeing 747s, which, when fully operational, will do nine round trips every week between our home base in Liège [Belgium] and Shanghai. They leave Liège only partly full and every day fly back to Europe as full as you can stuff them with iPods and computers. By our calculations, just these two 747s will use as much fuel each week as our 48 other aircraft combined and emit as much CO2.”

That’s why we’re fooling ourselves. There is no green revolution, or, if there is, the counter-revolution is trumping it at every turn. Without a transformational technological breakthrough in the energy space, all of the incremental gains we’re making will be devoured by the exponential growth of all the new and old “Americans.”

So just maybe while the Red Sox are doing their best to win the American League East division, our environmental leaders can come up with something better than change your lightbulbs.

Catch you later.

Anyway, the gorillas have been recategorized from “endangered” to “critically endangered.” That means their numbers have “declined by more than 60% over the last 20-25 years.”

Forest clearance has allowed hunters access to previously inaccessible areas; and the Ebola virus has followed, wiping out one-third of the total gorilla population in protected areas, and up to 95% in some regions.

Ebola has moved through the western lowland gorilla’s rangelands in western central Africa from the southwest to the northeast. If it continues its march, it will reach all the remaining populations within a decade.

The Sumatran orangutan was already Critically Endangered before this assessment, with numbers having fallen by 80% in the last 75 years … In Borneo, home to the second orangutan species, palm oil plantations have expanded 10-fold in a decade, and now take up 27,000 sq km of the island. Illegal logging reduces habitat still further, while another threat comes from hunting for food and the illegal international pet trade.

But, as it turns out, we’re not just driving the gorillas to death, its one species after another. The numbers of species in deep trouble boggles the mind:

One in three amphibians, one in four mammals, one in eight birds and 70% of plants so far assessed are believed to be at risk of extinction, with human alteration of their habitat the single biggest cause.

The tone of this year’s Red List is depressingly familiar. Of 41,415 species assessed, 16,306 are threatened with extinction to a greater or lesser degree.

Yo Noah, where are you when we need you?

Two by two by 16,306. We’re talking the mother of all boats. We used to call her Mother Earth.

OK, I can’t leave us in this place. How about some good news.

The Chinese, who have receiving much abuse for doing in the last 30 years what we in the western world have been doing non-stop since the Industrial Revolution, have come up with a new idea for the modern eco-city.

China will start building the country’s first eco-city in the new year and plans four other radical new urban developments as it seeks to tackle pollution, the head of the firm designing the projects said on Saturday.

Peter Head, Director of engineering firm Arup, said they will not need subsidies to make money because developers spend less on infrastructure and have been given generous land use rights on the crowded east coast where real estate is at a premium.

The firm expects construction to start in early 2008 at Dongtan, a development on an island outside Shanghai where all energy will be renewable, no gasoline-fueled cars permitted and farms will grow organic vegetables for local consumption.

Like billions go up in smoke every year - 40 billion dollars worth - as gas is burned off by oil producers in oil fields.

Nigerian kids watch gas flares at Shell oilfield - Elaine Gilligan Climate Justice

Abid Aslam reports on a World Bank study:

The practice, known as flaring, also hastens climate change by spewing some 400 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, says the study, billed as the first global survey supported by photos taken from satellites in space …

The report, commissioned by the World Bank and conducted by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, estimates that last year, 5.5 percent of global gas production, or 27 percent of U.S. consumption, was lost to flaring.

There was disagreement and disputes at the recent August 27 - 31 United Nations talks on climate change. Alister Doyle notes:

About 1,000 delegates at the Aug 27-31 U.N. talks set greenhouse gas emissions cuts of between 25 and 40 percent below 1990 levels as a non-binding starting point for rich nations’ work on a new pact to extend the U.N.’s Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012.

“These conclusions…indicate what industrialized countries must do to show leadership,” said Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, welcoming a compromise deal on the range of needed cuts.

“But more needs to be done by the global community,” he told a news conference at the end of the 158-nation talks. Many countries want to broaden Kyoto to include targets for outsiders such as the United States and developing nations.

Delegates agreed that the 25-40 percent range “provides useful initial parameters for the overall level of ambition of further emissions reductions.”

It fell short of calls by the European Union and developing nations for the range to be called a stronger “guide” for future work. Pacific Island states said that even stiffer cuts may be needed to avert rising seas that could wash them off the map.

Nations including Russia, Japan and Canada had objected to the idea of a “guide,” reckoning it might end up binding them to make sweeping economic shifts away from fossil fuels, widely seen as a main cause of global warming.

Politics is a pretty weird sport. Suppose you need a 80% reductive and you get 25 - 40%. Well I guess you could say 25 - 40% is a heck of a lot better than nada, nothing, zip, zero. So what’s a victory? And what’s a defeat?

The story continues:

Environmentalists also hailed the conclusions as a step in the right direction. “The road to Bali is clear but it’s time to switch gears,” said Red Constantino of Greenpeace.

“We have a clear message from most governments that they will take seriously” scientists’ calls for deep cuts, said Hans Verolme, climate expert of the WWF.

Kyoto binds 36 industrial nations to cut emissions of greenhouse gases by at least 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12 in a first bid to contain warming.

The United States has not ratified Kyoto, rating it too costly and unfair for excluding 2012 goals for developing states, and thus was not involved in Friday’s session.

Would the decision have been different if the polar bears had a vote?

Iceberg in Ilulissat fjord in Greenland - Michael Kappeler/Pool/Reuters

There’s a lot of questions about carbon offsets - doing something positive to account for all the fossil fuel energy you’re burning. You fly to the French Riviera and you pay somebody to buy some trees. There are questions about how accurately you can figure out the energy you’re using - the carbon calculator. There are questions about whether the companies are investing money in really efficient ways to fight the climate crisis. Where are the trees being planted?

The title of Alan Zarembo’s story for the L.A. Times is entitled: “Can you buy a greener conscience?“

He analyzes the attempts of the producers of Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth” to offset the energy they burned making the film:

Co-producer Lesley Chilcott used an online calculator to estimate that shooting the film used 41.4 tons of carbon dioxide and paid a middleman, a company called Native Energy, $12 a ton, or $496.80, to broker a deal to cut greenhouse gases elsewhere. The film’s distributors later made a similar payment to neutralize carbon dioxide from the marketing of the movie.

It was a ridiculously good deal with one problem: So far, it has not led to any additional emissions reductions.

Beneath the feel-good simplicity of buying your way to carbon neutrality is a growing concern that the idea is more hype than solution.

According to Native Energy, money from “An Inconvenient Truth,” along with payments from others trying to neutralize their emissions, went to the developers of a methane collector on a Pennsylvanian farm and three wind turbines in an Alaskan village.

As it turned out, both projects had already been designed and financed, and the contributions from Native Energy covered only a minor fraction of their costs. “If you really believe you’re carbon neutral, you’re kidding yourself,” said Gregg Marland, a fossil-fuel pollution expert at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee who has been watching the evolution of the new carbon markets. “You can’t get out of it that easily.”

Uh-oh!

Speaking of inconvenient truths, check out the penguins on War, Iraq, and Global Warming.

First, Lewis Smith, Environmental Reporter for the UK Times offers the British take:

Flaunting your green credentials has taken over from buying a bigger car or installing the latest electronic gadget as the preferred means of getting one over on the neighbours.

Where once the chattering classes would have vied to demonstrate the most conspicuous consumption, now they are competing to be the greenest.

Such a shift has taken place in attitudes to the environment that conversation at dinner parties is more likely to turn to who had the most environmentally friendly holiday rather than who went to the most exotic location.

The pressure to be seen to be green is so strong that nine out of ten people admit telling “little green lies” to avoid being labelled an eco-vandal, a poll has found.

It seems a study by the Norwich Union found that more than half the UKers they interviewed found “unethical living” to be more socially unacceptable than driving drunk. And three-quarters of them found “ethical one-upmanship” is now a main topic of conversation while picking up kids from school or while eating with friends.

Smith continues:

Dr Peter Marsh, co-director of the Social Issues Research Council, said that the issue of being greener than the Joneses cropped up frequently during lifestyle studies. “You see it in cars. Yesterday you talked about brake horsepower, now people talk about carbon emissions from their car — even though it’s a 4×4 tractor,” he said.

“People are seeking to rationalise their choices at all times. People are getting almost anal about it.” The growing anxiety to appear to be green was a reflection of what is perceived to be socially acceptable, he added.

If only it were easy to be green. I mean really green. Green enough to ward off guilt. Green green.

A fifth of the 1,500 respondents said that they had little idea of what to do, and half said that they were too confused or had too little time to make their lifestyles greener.

Corinne Sweet, a psychologist, said: “We want to be ‘good’ but often are too busy, or it seems too complicated, so we cut corners, or forget altogether, and then feel guilty.

“This can lead people to lie about their environmental actions — or inactions — or even to give up trying altogether, as it all seems too much to pack into our already too-busy lives. People are feeling a great deal of anxiety, irritation and fear that what they are doing is not enough or is wrong.”

 

Your imaginary BMW hydrogen car. The offsets you never purchased. The compost never composted.

Lewis Smith offers some small ways to green up your street cred:

— Walk, cycle or take public transport everywhere

— Grow own vegetables and flowers organically

— Time the family’s showers

— Put a brick in the cistern

— Insulate their home

— Collect rainwater in barrels in the garden

— Compost food waste

— Recycle other waste

— Use renewable energy

— Install solar panels or wind turbines

— Refuse to holiday abroad

— Use a manual lawnmower

— Use only long-life bulbs Buy locally produced food to cut food miles

— Turn off appliances instead of using standby

— Use only wood products from sustainable forests

— Ditch plastic bags

— Turn the heating down

— Be buried in a wood with a tree planted on top

And of course there’s always your basic clothesline.

So what about this side of the Atlantic? While the Brits are grappling with green guilt, the Robert Frank of the Wall Street Journal writes about “Living Large While Being Green.”

You know how a long time ago, the rich could buy the service of a poor guy to go off to war in his place, well Frank writes about “Rich Buy ‘Offsets’ For Wasteful Ways; Noble, or Guilt Fee?”It turns out the rich are in an even bigger bind than your ordinary Brit. Why? Well it seems that:

With their growing fleets of yachts, jets and cars, and their sprawling estates, today’s outsized wealthy have also become outsized polluters. There are now 10,000 private jets swarming American skies, all burning more than 15 times as much fuel per passenger as commercial planes. The summer seas are increasingly crowded with megayachts swallowing up to 80 gallons of fuel an hour.

Yet with the green movement in vogue, the rich are looking for ways to compensate for their carbon-dioxide generation, which is linked to global warming, without crimping their style. Some are buying carbon “offsets” for their private-jet flights, which help fund alternate-energy technologies such as windmills, or carbon dioxide-eating greenery such as trees. Others are installing ocean-monitoring equipment on their yachts. And a few are building green-certified mansions, complete with solar-heated indoor swimming pools.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water:

You know that rabbit hole that Alice fell into. Well it’s one of those days. Some of this stuff is hard to take. It’s like the Mad Hatter is loose.

Try this on for size. This comes from the Detroit News:

“U.S. automakers are taking their fuel economy case to Middle America, warning that too dramatic an increase in federal efficiency standards would cost billions and put jobs at risk if they were forced to stop making their biggest, most profitable models.

General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC will hold rallies in downtown Chicago and St. Louis, beginning Thursday in the Windy City.”

Let’s rally for lousy fuel efficiency. Let’s rally to spend more money at the pumps. Let’s rally so American car makers can continue to be stupid.

Who does the PR for these people?

Listen to this:

“The automakers hope the grassroots effort will help beat back a proposal passed by the U.S. Senate earlier this year that would raise corporate average fuel economy mandates 40 percent to 35 miles per gallon for cars and trucks combined by 2020.”

The article goes on:

“Hundreds of United Auto Workers members at Ford’s South Side Chicago assembly plant and Chrysler’s Belvidere, Ill., factory will attend a rally Thursday at Federal Plaza in Chicago.

They will present petitions signed by factory workers and others that will be delivered to local congressional offices, including the office of presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., who has sharply criticized Detroit automakers for not doing enough to improve fuel economy.”

So those great grassroots demonstrators are the folks who are dependent on the automakers for their jobs. I wonder what happens to the autoworkers who miss the rally.

But hey what’s a little fool inefficiency. It’s not like any of this really matters.

Oh but wait. What if the Mad Hatter is mad?

Just maybe this means something:

“Islands emerge as Arctic ice shrinks to record low”

Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent of Reuters reports:

“Previously unknown islands are appearing as Arctic summer sea ice shrinks to record lows, raising questions about whether global warming is outpacing U.N. projections, experts said.

Polar bears and seals have also suffered this year on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard because the sea ice they rely on for hunts melted far earlier than normal.

“Reductions of snow and ice are happening at an alarming rate,” Norwegian Environment Minister Helen Bjoernoy said at a seminar of 40 scientists and politicians that began late on Monday in Ny Alesund, 1,200 km (750 miles) from the North Pole.”

Paris bikes - Charles Bremner

Here’s an instance of good green news. In Paris, people are riding bikes. The city had the smart idea to provide 10,000 bikes around the city to reduce driving. I thought that was pretty cool. Of course, when I told some older folks about it, they smiled, and told me about the Diggers who put white bikes around Amsterdam in the 60s. And unlike Paris you didn’t need a credit card - they probably didn’t even have credit cards then - because it was FREE.

Anyway, this isn’t the Diggers but the city itself.

This is what Charles Bremer in the UK Times reported:

Taxi drivers and other critics said that it would never work, but three weeks after Paris was sprinkled with 10,000 self-service bicycles, the scheme is proving a triumph and a new pedalling army appears to be taming the city’s famously fierce traffic.

Bertrand Delanoë, the city’s mayor, and his green-minded administration are jubilant at the gusto with which Parisians and visitors have taken to the heavy grey cycles that have been available at 750 ranks since July 15.

Nowhere is the project being watched with greater interest than in London as the city prepares for London Freewheel day next month, when miles of roads will be car-free for the day. After witnessing first-hand the ease with which Parisians have taken to pedalling, Ken Livingstone, the Mayor, has asked Transport for London to develop a similar plan for London and bring together several smaller schemes across the city.

In Paris there have been few teething troubles with the high-tech system that supplies the bikes for up to €1 per half-hour — but one is a result of residents using them to glide downhill to work and then taking public transport home, resulting in gluts of bikes at some low-level stands and shortages at higher altitude stations, such as Montmartre …

Subscribers must pay €29 (£20) a year, give their credit card details and leave a €150 credit card deposit to join the Vélib scheme.

Pretty good news. Although it’s a bit steep for me. Let’s hear it for the Diggers!

For those of you doing your part driving a hybrid car, you might be interested in this report from AutoblogGreen rating the 5 safest hybrids for 2007 with 1 being the safest:

The results just might shock you.

1 Toyota Camry Hybrid 4-Dr w/SAB
2 Honda Civic Hybrid 4-DR w/SAB
3 Ford Escape Hybrid 4-DR
4 Mercury Mariner Hybrid 4-DR
5 Toyota Prius 4-DR w/SAB

You might be surprised to see the Prius, the most fuel efficient hybrid, the lowest ranked. This ranking is from data obtained from safer car. Go below the fold to find out exactly how I made the list.

[Source: NHTSA, EPA]
First, I took a look at this list. It’s the Fuel Economy Leaders: 2007 Model Year. There were five hybrids on that list. Then I looked up each of those cars at safer car. The crash test for the Ford Escape and Mercury Mariner did not include side air bags. I think they did that because it’s optional and not standard. There were no roll over ratings for the Camry, Escape and Mariner. So I ignored roll over ratings.

So you can say, this is really just a fair comparison of 3 hybrids front and side crash rating. I am being as open as possible because I think you should know everything I did. Anyway, I added up the star ratings. Then proceeded to rank them.

Now for bad news. There’s a lot of dying going on.

The Chinese river dolphin. Reuters reports:

The long-threatened Yangtze River dolphin in China is probably extinct, according to an international team of researchers who said this would mark the first whale or dolphin to be wiped out due to human activity …

The freshwater dolphin, or baiji, was last spotted several years ago and an intensive six-week search in late 2006 failed to find any evidence that one of the rarest species on earth survives, said Samuel Turvey, a conservation biologist, at the Zoological Society of London, who took part in the search.

He said the dolphin’s demise — which resulted from overfishing, pollution and lack of intervention — might serve as a cautionary tale and should spur governments and scientists to act to save other species verging on extinction.

And then there’s coral! According to Michael Casey, an environmental reporter for the AP:

Coral reefs in much of the Pacific Ocean are dying faster than previously thought, according to a study released Wednesday, with the decline driven by climate change, disease and coastal development.

Researchers from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill found that coral coverage in the Indo-Pacific — an area stretching from Indonesia’s Sumatra island to French Polynesia — dropped 20 percent in the past two decades.

About 600 square miles of reefs have disappeared since the 1960s, the study found, and the losses were just as bad in Australia’s well-protected Great Barrier Reef as they were in poorly managed marine reserves in the Philippines.

Casey continues:

“We found the loss of reef building corals was much more widespread and severe than previously thought,” said John Bruno, who conducted the study along with Elizabeth Selig. “Even the best managed reefs in the Indo-Pacific suffered significant coral loss over the past 20 years.”

The study, which examined 6,000 surveys of more than 2,600 Indo-Pacific coral reefs done between 1968 and 2004, found the declines began earlier than previously estimated and mirror global trends. The United Nations has found close to a third of the world’s corals have disappeared, and 60 percent are expected to be lost by 2030 …

“It is just one more example of the striking, far reaching effects of climate change and our behavior,” Bruno said of the link between climate change and reef destruction. “It is the folks in North Carolina driving their SUVs. It is their behavior that is having an effect way out in the Indo-Pacific.”

There’s some more bad news but I leave it for another time. Let’s end this with an interesting idea from Congressman Dingell. Tina Lam of the Detroit Free Press reports that:

Powerful U.S. Rep. John Dingell revealed Tuesday new details of his plan to cut global warming, including adding a 50-cents-a-gallon tax on gasoline and ending the mortgage tax deduction on what he called “McMansions,” homes larger than 3,000 square feet.

Dingell, the auto industry’s staunchest defender in Washington, D.C., but a legislator who also has a strong environmental record, is faced with what he called the most difficult battle of his career, trying to persuade the country to accept fixes for greenhouse gases that will be unpopular and painful to people’s wallets …

Dingell said at a town hall meeting in Ann Arbor that he plans to propose a multi-pronged bill Sept. 1 when Congress reconvenes. He will ask for an economy-wide tax of about $100 per ton of carbon dioxide emissions, as well as the gas tax.

Dingell’s mention of “McMansions” and his call to take away the mortgage interest deduction for large homes, which use more energy than smaller ones, drew applause and a few cheers.

It would be great if John Edwards who is offering perhaps the most comprehensive program for the environment - and who is in the process of building a McMansion - comes out in support of such an idea.

Well, that’s it for now. It’s still green out and I’m headed outside.

How much is a green blog worth?

Apparently a heck of a lot.

Duncan Riley reports for TechCrunch.com:

Discovery Communications has announced the acquisition of TreeHugger.com for what is believed to be $10 million.

TreeHugger.com started as an environmentally focused blog in 2004 and grew to include forums, green guides and other related features. The site sits in the Top 20 blogs worldwide according to Technorati and is said to have 1.4 million unique visitors a month. Alexa ranks the site at 5,395.

TreeHugger.com’s Graham Hill said in a post that the acquisition “will allow TreeHugger to go much further and faster than it would have been able to alone or with another partner… by teaming up with Discovery, we believe we can more effectively play a critical role in [our environmental] mission”

How much further and faster does $10 million buy?

And how does Discovery recoup its greenbacks and greenbucks?

That’s an awful lot of green weddings!

Meanwhile our penguin friends at Penguins United have an interesting post about the new research that shows the arctic ice is melting faster than most people expected. That got me to do some checking. The British newspaper, the Independent, had this report:

The sea ice of the Arctic will melt further and faster than at any time since records began nearly 30 years ago, according to the latest data collected by a satellite survey of the polar region.

Scientists warned yesterday that the sea ice is already approaching the record minimum set in September 2005, even with a further month of the summer melting season still remaining.

This year has seen one of the most rapid rates of sea ice melting, which began in spring after one of the most disappointing winters for ice formation. “Unless something unusual happens we’re definitely on track for a record loss of sea ice. We’re on track to shatter all records,” said Mark Serreze, an Arctic specialist at the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre at Colorado University in Denver. “The rates of sea ice loss this year are really rather remarkable. Some of the daily rates of loss are the biggest we’ve ever seen. Things are happening really fast,” Dr Serreze said.

Penguin1 added this photo to make the point come alive:

The penguins also turned me on to this report: a new public opinion poll from England about people’s response to global warming. David Adam of the Guardian begins his report with this depressing news:

Millions of people across Britain think their behaviour does not contribute to climate change and find it too much effort to make green changes to their lifestyle, a government survey suggests.

About a quarter of people polled agreed with statements such as: “It takes too much effort to do things that are environmentally friendly” and “I don’t believe my behaviour and everyday lifestyle contribute to climate change”. About half the people disagreed with the statements

He then tried to give us some good news but it didn’t quite do it for me:

There were some signs that the environmental message is getting through. Over half those polled said they never leave the television on standby overnight or their mobile phone chargers plugged in, and that they always switched off lights when they left the room. But a fifth keep their televisions on standby, and a similar proportion leave the tap running when they brush their teeth.

Here’s some more details:

When asked about their attitude towards the environment, 67% strongly agreed or tended to agree that “humans are capable of finding ways to overcome the world’s environmental problems”. But only 19% thought that “scientists will find a solution to global warming without people having to make big changes to their lifestyles”. A similar proportion, 17%, said that “climate change is beyond control - it’s too late to do anything about it”.

On behaviour, 71% said they were recycling more. More than half said they were wasting less food and cutting down on gas and electricity use in the home. Almost three-quarters used low-energy light bulbs, up from 31% in 2001.

While 29% of people said they were already making an effort to use their cars and fly less, up to a third said they “don’t really want to” make such changes.

Over half said they would like to reduce their car use but found there were no practical alternatives.

Well yeah I never really wanted to do my homework or take out the garbage for that matter. Isn’t that what parents are for? Our smarter adults?

Or in the case of global warming and the climate crisis, isn’t that what governments are for? And when individual governments fail, shouldn’t the United Nations step in?

Somebody has to be looking at the bigger picture, especially when it means losing the entire planet because lumber companies want to cut down rain forests and whalers want to kill whales and people in Britain would prefer not to be inconvenienced by melting ice and the death of the polar bears.

Sometimes ME ME ME ME ME equals the end of WE.

Research. That’s what I was taught in school.

So this morning, when I got my chance to look at the newspaper - the Red Sox game ended late and the local paper publishes early - so they didn’t have an article and I zipped through the other sections.

Right there in the Living section was an article by Kristin Dizon: “‘Green’ wave hits wedding industry: Easy on the environment, hard on the finances.”

What’s a greenboyblogger to do? Research. Responsibility. So here’s the nugget: “During their August 2006 wedding, Sarah Kraybill Burkhalter and Andrew Burkhalter planted a native evergreen tree. He wore a hemp shirt, both wore sandals, and they served locally grown, vegetarian cuisine to 180 guests, most of whom sat on blankets on the grass during the ceremony.

In lieu of gifts, the car-less couple, who bike, bus and walk to get around, asked guests to consider offsetting their carbon dioxide emissions to travel to the wedding near Leavenworth. The Burkhalters registered for eco-friendly housewares, such as bamboo towels. To decrease the environmental impact of mining, they had wedding bands made from recycled gold.

My guess is many boybloggers, green, red or blue think weddings are a ways away, or may never happen. But I guess when the icebergs are melting and the soot is spreading, if you’re going to head down the aisle, you might as well head there in hemp!

But I wonder if the trend will spread downward. After all, many of us just don’t have the dough-re-mi to greenify that one moment in time.

Dizon continues:

The latest surfer on the green wave is the $125 billion wedding industry. Magazines such as Bridal Guide and Brides have highlighted the trend, taking it mainstream.

The average American nuptials now cost more than $27,800, according to a 2006 survey by Conde Nast Bridal Group. (That’s an 83 percent rise since 1990.) And, since it’s often the largest, showiest party a couple will throw in their lifetimes, a wedding can leave a substantial environmental footprint.

However, banish images of a barefoot affair in the forest with flower headbands, a pan pipe, three-tiered granola cake and decorated getaway bikes. Today’s green or eco-friendly weddings have plenty of style and panache. Green options have multiplied exponentially in the past few years, ranging from soy candles to organic wines and beers, hemp dresses, hybrid getaway cars and Moissanite, a lab-created diamond alternative.

Well I had no idea what a hemp wedding dress looks like - so with the help of Google, take a look at what Get Conscious offers:

Welcome! We are very excited to offer you our line of hemp wedding gowns, bridesmaids’ dresses and flower girl dresses. In addition to bridal wear, we offer beautiful evening gowns suitable for gala events. Each dress is cut and sewn to order, with exquisite attention to detail. We are also able to offer customized, one-of-a-kind hemp gowns.

hemp wedding dress - getconscious.com

For a greenboyblogger, I’m very impressed. This is the folks at getconscious have to say:

If you are having or are interested in having an alternative or eco wedding, your wedding dress ought to be the starting point from which you will work the theme that reflects your spirit.
Conscious Clothing of Santa Fe has been making environmentally and ecologically-conscious hemp, hemp/silk and hemp/tencel bridal garments or wedding gowns for Vegan, vegetarian and environmentally-aware people for years.

In your green wedding, you may want to have your bridesmaids wear a natural material, too.
We have bridesmaids dresses and separates that are available now. Contact us by phone or by e-mail to request samples of our colors and fabrics.

But Dizon isn’t finished:

How green is green?

A totally green wedding may be a myth. The bigger challenge seems to be defining just how green you want it to be and what that entails. Beyond the immediate environmental and consumer impacts, there are questions of social and economic justice, fair trade and more.

So a bride might wonder whether the fabric in her wedding is grown sustainably, how far it had to travel to get to her, and whether the workers who made it received fair wages in decent working conditions.

For simple weddings, greening can save money. But those seeking to serve all-organic cuisine will likely pay 20 to 30 percent more for food. Usually, certified organic flowers, which are pesticide free, also cost more.

Well nobody said it would be easy!

Anyway, there was more of the paper - speaking of green - sections of paper that head straight for the recycling bin. And another green article. And lo and behold it’s about what you might do with all that clothing everybody wore to that great green wedding.

Vinnie Tong’s AP article is entitled: “What is green dry cleaning?” Haven’t spent an hour thinking about, well actually day-dreaming attending, that green wedding, I said to myself: what is green dry cleaning and where can I take my hemp pants and shirt?

Vinnie Tong explains:

Dry cleaning involves washing clothes in liquids other than water. As it’s done at 90 percent of cleaners in the United States, it uses a liquid form of perchloroethylene (PERC), a chemical believed to cause cancer. As it evaporates, PERC can contaminate nearby air and groundwater, and reportedly can be absorbed through the skin from soil or from dry-cleaned clothes. California is phasing out its use by 2011.

A far less common technology, CO2 cleaning, uses liquid carbon dioxide to clean clothes instead of PERC. A handful of entrepreneurs have found a way to profitably operate dry cleaners using CO2, but the higher cost for the machines has prevented any wider adoption of it. (A CO2 machine costs about $100,000, roughly twice as much as a PERC machine, which can cost $45,000 to $50,000.)

Uh-uh. Here we go again. Green costs more. So whose idea was perchloroethylene in the first place?

Maybe next time I’ll do some more research and let you know.

Life would have been a lot easier if the Red Sox hadn’t gone extra innings.