I’ve been looking at the hot button issues for blogs like this one for the coming year- not predictions but rather the stories that are unfolding right now, at the beginning of the year. When I started this blog a few years ago there was some debate about warming but the effects and proposed solutions were not totally clear. Now we’re seeing direct effects almost daily around the globe and starting to understand that dealing with this disaster is a global economic challenge rather than a political one. This hodgepodge of stories supports this contention:

• Switchgrass ethanol study shows that this source returns 540% of the energy required to grow and refine it. Corn returns something like 50%. Corn ethanol is not viable.
• The introduction of the $2500 Nano car in India and other emerging economies is going to have a profoundly negative effect of energy prices and generate enormous new emissions as the number of cars on the planet explodes.
• We’re using 2.9 million barrels of oil per day more than 6 years ago, globally. If you think oil at $100 is a story, think about oil at $200. When demand goes up and supply goes down, prices skyrocket.
• Automotive technology is poised for an explosion of innovation this year with the Tesla electric sports car, fuel cells, new biological hydrogen extraction techniques, highly efficient hybrids and plug-in hybrids and more. What does this tell us? That the conspiracy theories of the past that said oil and car companies were killing and/or stifling innovation were true- this stuff didn’t just appear out of thin air.
• Greenland Ice Sheet Scares the Crap Out of Climate Scientists. We’ll be watching the ice globally this year, especially in Grenland where the volume of water held in stasis by the ice sheet is equivalent to the entire Gulf of Mexico (!). Estimates for ocean rise by 2050 due to rapidly accelerating melting and calving of the ice sheet range from 2-6 meters. Goodbye virtually every coastal city worldwide including our nation’s capitol (anyone remember the flooded national Mall last year, New York’s subway floods and the ongoing national shame of Katrina?)
• The weather. It’s impossible to describe how big this story is. Here in Rochester, NY, the famously chilly winter upstate area was 70 degrees earlier this week, breaking all records. Killer tornados in the midwest in January, winter storms with CAT 4 winds (140 mph+) in the Pacific Northwest. Droughts in the southwest and southeast with no reserve water supplies. That’s just this week, folks.
• Water, water, nowhere. Only 1 in 500 Chinese have free access to potable drinking water. In much of the world it is worse. Yes, they have to buy drinking water and it’s not cheap. Repercussions of water issues cross all geographic and economic boundaries.
• Carbon costs. We’re going to have to start measuring the carbon costs of virtually all of our activities and products if we’re going to startle people into awareness of how their own actions are worsening the problem of climate change. I’m not buying organic milk that is shipped across the country when I can get local milk for half the price, dollars and carbon-wise. Look at what you buy and how far it came to get to you. And don’t forget the packaging.
• Freegan culture and the Chinese product backlash. Because of the Chinese toy scandals a lot of parents who don’t have time to worry about environmental issues are questioning the provenance of the products they buy and the immediate response is ‘I’m not buying Chinese’. A secondary response is the rise of freegan culture that says ‘I’m not buying things I don’t need and when I do need something I’m going to look for used or free stuff’. You don’t have to dumpster dive, there’s a huge thrift shop culture out there. Do you really need a new blender when your neighborhood Goodwill probably has ten perfectly good ones for a buck or two?
• Home and automotive energy costs crush economy by limiting disposable income. We’re paying five times as much as ten years ago for heat/AC and gas, yet incomes have not risen much. When you take $300-400 more out of a typical family’s monthly budget because of energy costs that money does not flow into the economy.

These stories are just the ones at the top of my awareness today. There are dozens more, so many in fact, that it is daunting to even write a quirky blog about climate change- it is overwhelming in the reach and impact it already has. Nevertheless I’ll be at it again in 2008.

Imagine a plan that charges polluters and puts that money into our pockets. Peter Barnes of Working Assets did:

“The simplest and fairest way to protect the poor and middle class is to give equal rebates to everyone. The money would come from either a carbon tax, or an auction of carbon emission permits…. Just as every Alaska resident receives an equal dividend from revenue from state oil leases, so every American would get an equal dividend from carbon permit auctions. The dividends would be wired monthly into people’s bank accounts, much like Social Security payments. They’d help families pay their monthly bills.

There are several nice features of such a plan. One is that it’s automatic — as energy prices rise, so do dividends. Another is that how you fare depends on what you do. The more energy you use, the more you pay. Since everyone gets the same amount back, you gain if you conserve and lose if you guzzle. This is fair to everyone, whether rich or poor. And it takes politicians off the hook for rising energy prices. If voters complain, politicians can truthfully say, “The market sets prices, and you determine by your own energy use whether you gain or lose. If you conserve, you come out ahead.”

The NYTimes DotEarth blog has an interview detailing this provocative approach to carbon caps.

Sign me up.

Stephen Johnson sold out the environment to the automakers yesterday, refusing to allow 17 states to set stringent emissions standards even though his entire staff recommended he allow the waivers. This after meetings with VP Cheney and the automakers:

“Some staff members believe Johnson made his decision after auto executives met with Vice President Dick Cheney and after a Chrysler executive delivered a letter to the White House outlining why neither California nor the EPA should be allowed to regulate greenhouse gases, among other reasons. The Detroit News reported Wednesday that chief executives of Ford and Chrysler met with Cheney last month.

“Clearly the White House said, ‘We’re going to get EPA out of the way and get California out of the way. If you give us this energy bill, then we’re done, the deal is done,’ ” said one staffer.”

From the LATimes.com

These people are evil, shortsighted and addicted to power. Don’t vote for any Republicans in any races next year regardless of your personal politics- it’s the only way they wil get the message that the environment is the problem we face this century.

David Sassoon writes:

“With this e-mail, I want to introduce myself and bring you a most important story from Bali, Indonesia that is not being reported in the US media.

It comes from an eyewitness who tells the dramatic tale of how the nations of the world, assembled there to make progress on climate change, overcame the singular obstruction of the Bush delegation.

“Then occurred one of the most remarkable sounds that has perhaps ever been heard in the annals of international diplomacy–like a collective global groan–descending then to a murmer, then increasing in volume to a full-throated expression of rage and anger and booing and jeering, lasting for a full minute, so that finally the Minister had to call the meeting back to order.”

It brought tears to my eyes. Please read it. The link is here:

Of course, I would like everyone in America to read this story, so please amplify it in every way possible.

I hope you find the story of interest, and will also take a minute to look around and get acquainted with my blog called SolveClimate.”

Thanks, Dave.