Thomas Friedman on the Dow and Nature

Mother Nature’s Dow
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
While I’m convinced that our current financial crisis is the product of both The Market and Mother Nature hitting the wall at once — telling us we need to grow in more sustainable ways — some might ask this: We know when the market hits a wall. It shows up in red numbers on the Dow. But Mother Nature doesn’t have a Dow. What makes you think she’s hitting a wall, too? And even if she is: Who cares? When my 401(k) is collapsing, it’s hard to worry about my sea level rising.

It’s true, Mother Nature doesn’t tell us with one simple number how she’s feeling. But if you follow climate science, what has been striking is how insistently some of the world’s best scientists have been warning — in just the past few months — that climate change is happening faster and will bring bigger changes quicker than we anticipated just a few years ago. Indeed, if Mother Nature had a Dow, you could say that it, too, has been breaking into new (scientific) lows.

Consider just two recent articles:

The Washington Post reported on Feb. 1, that “the pace of global warming is likely to be much faster than recent predictions, because industrial greenhouse gas emissions have increased more quickly than expected and higher temperatures are triggering self-reinforcing feedback mechanisms in global ecosystems, scientists said. ‘We are basically looking now at a future climate that’s beyond anything we’ve considered seriously in climate model simulations,’ Christopher Field, director of the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University, said.”

The physicist and climate expert Joe Romm recently noted on his blog, climateprogress.org, that in January, M.I.T.’s Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change quietly updated its Integrated Global System Model that tracks and predicts climate change from 1861 to 2100. Its revised projection indicates that if we stick with business as usual, in terms of carbon-dioxide emissions, average surface temperatures on Earth by 2100 will hit levels far beyond anything humans have ever experienced.

“In our more recent global model simulations,” explained M.I.T., “the ocean heat-uptake is slower than previously estimated, the ocean uptake of carbon is weaker, feedbacks from the land system as temperature rises are stronger, cumulative emissions of greenhouse gases over the century are higher, and offsetting cooling from aerosol emissions is lower. Not one of these effects is very strong on its own, and even adding each separately together would not fully explain the higher temperatures. [But,] rather than interacting additively, these different effects appear to interact multiplicatively, with feedbacks among the contributing factors, leading to the surprisingly large increase in the chance of much higher temperatures.”

What to do? It would be nice to say, “Hey, Mother Nature, we’re having a credit crisis, could you take a couple years off?” But as the environmental consultant Rob Watson likes to say, “Mother Nature is just chemistry, biology and physics,” and she is going to do whatever they dictate. You can’t sweet talk Mother Nature or the market. You have to change the economics to affect the Dow and the chemistry, biology and physics to affect Mother Nature.

That’s why we need a climate bailout along with our economic bailout. Hal Harvey is the C.E.O. of a new $1 billion foundation, ClimateWorks, set up to accelerate the policy changes that can avoid climate catastrophe by taking climate policies from where they are working the best to the places where they are needed the most.

“There are five policies that can help us win the energy-climate battle, and each has been proven somewhere,” Harvey explained. First, building codes: California’s energy-efficient building and appliance codes now save Californians $6 billion per year,” he said. Second, better vehicle fuel-efficiency standards: “The European Union’s fuel-efficiency fleet average for new cars now stands at 41 miles per gallon, and is rising steadily,” he added.

Third, we need a national renewable portfolio standard, mandating that power utilities produce 15 or 20 percent of their energy from renewables by 2020. Right now, only about half our states have these. “Whenever utilities are required to purchase electricity from renewable sources,” said Harvey, “clean energy booms.” (See Germany’s solar business or Texas’s wind power.)

The fourth is decoupling — the program begun in California that turns the utility business on its head. Under decoupling, power utilities make money by helping homeowners save energy rather than by encouraging them to consume it. “Finally,” said Harvey, “we need a price on carbon.” Polluting the atmosphere can’t be free.

These are the pillars of a climate bailout. Yes, some have upfront costs. But all of them would pay long-term dividends, because they would foster massive U.S. innovation in new clean technologies that would stimulate the real Dow and much lower emissions that would stimulate the Climate Dow.

Turn off your lights at 8:30 tonight and save energy for an EARTH HOUR

Event aiming to turn spotlight on climate by turning off lights
BY KRISTIN NETTERSTROM
Posted on Saturday, March 28, 2009
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/255910/
Organizations and residents across the state are flipping the switch tonight, turning their lights and other electrical gadgets off for an hour to raise awareness about climate change as part of the 2009 global Earth Hour effort.

Nearly 200 U.S. cities are expected to participate, with the lights going out at hundreds of McDonald's restaurants across the Midwest and at popular tourist attractions, such as Broadway marquees in New York and the spotlights that shine on Chicago's Sears Tower's twin spires. Cities in 84 countries are expected to participate at 8:30 p.m., their local times, The Associated Press reported.

Severed limb budding at end. Birds and squirrels and rabbits may eat them

Here is the caption with the photo of limbs burning in Benton County:
Up in smoke:
Benton County employee Harvey Johnson watched a fire at 10791 Stoney Point Road near Lowell on Thursday. The county is burning limbs and trees broken by this winter’s ice storm. Other burn sites are at 9900 Marchant Road in Elm Springs, 21447 Waukesha Road in Siloam Springs and 19941 Bettis Hill Road near War Eagle. Washington County is also burning ice-storm debris on North 40th Street in Springdale. DAVID FRANK DEMPSEY / Benton County Daily Record

If no one in either county had a fireplace or a wood stove, this might seem slightly less ridiculous.
I hope a lot of people who can use firewood or who would collect it and sell will be at those sites before more is burned and load it up and take it away.
This wood would save people money, reduce air pollution now and save the carbon in these limbs for actual home heating and reduce global climate change (because people with wood stoves and fire places will be buying wood next fall and reducing the tree cover even more in Northwest Arkansas.
Additionally, birds and squirrels are eating buds on those limbs where they are lying. In fact, many large limbs or trunks lying separated from the main trunk nearly months are budding right now! So wildlife are having too search a bit more for food, which is tough for birds facing nesting season.
Burning material with this much value is WRONG.
It is even worse than chipping it all. This is incredibly wasteful and inconsiderate of people and other living things.

Benton County Daily Record shares photo of downed limbs burning near Lowell in Friday March 27, 2009, edition

Here is the caption:
Up in smoke:
Benton County employee Harvey Johnson watched a fire at 10791 Stoney Point Road near Lowell on Thursday. The county is burning limbs and trees broken by this winter’s ice storm. Other burn sites are at 9900 Marchant Road in Elm Springs, 21447 Waukesha Road in Siloam Springs and 19941 Bettis Hill Road near War Eagle. Washington County is also burning ice-storm debris on North 40th Street in Springdale. DAVID FRANK DEMPSEY / Benton County Daily Record

If no one in either county had a fireplace or a wood stove, this might seem slightly less ridiculous.
I hope a lot of people who can use firewood or who would collect it and sell will be at those sites before more is burned and load it up and take it away.
This wood would save people money, reduce air pollution now and save the carbon in these limbs for actual home heating and reduce global climate change (because people with wood stoves and fire places will be buying wood next fall and reducing the tree cover even more in Northwest Arkansas.
Additionally, birds and squirrels are eating buds on those limbs where they are lying. In fact, many large limbs or trunks lying separated from the main trunk nearly months are budding right now! So wildlife are having too search a bit more for food, which is tough for birds facing nesting season.
Burning material with this much value is WRONG.
It is even worse than chipping it all. This is completely wasteful.

The population bomb keeps getting more powerful but naysayers continue to ignore itl

March 21, 1974
The new Population Bomb?
Professor Sir John Beddington, Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Government and Professor at Imperial College in London has given a speech to the Sustainable Development UK conference calling for immediate action in addressing food, energy, and water concerns. He believes that these three human needs will culminate in a "perfect storm" capable of disrupting much of life as we know it. If we do not move to handle the increasing demands, growing population and increasing poverty will come to a head by 2030, causing a crisis which could result in conflict, political upheaval, and mass migration.

This call for action reminds me of Paul Ehrlich, who in 1968 wrote The Population Bomb "...in which he foresaw the end of life on earth by famine, plague, or thermonuclear destruction unless drastic measures were taken -- first and foremost, a halt to the spiraling population growth" according to the News Journal (March 31, 1970). Ehrlich's population bomb did not come to pass, and the world has more-or-less kept up food production in coordination with population growth. But Beddington's predictions are not as dire, and are backed by more solid facts. Will his foresight become fact?


2003: Invasion of Iraq
The Iraq War, still ongoing, began today with the invasion of Iraq by the United States backed by British, Australian, Polish, and Danish troops. “U.S. forces launched their long-awaited war against Saddam Hussein, targeting him personally with a barrage of cruise missiles and bombs as a prelude to invasion,” reported the Logansport Pharos-Tribune on March 20, 2003. “Iraq responded hours later, firing missiles today toward American troops positioned just across its border with Kuwait.”



Links to the Past
War Commences
Logansport Pharos-Tribune, March 20, 2003

U.S. forces unleash first salvos against Saddam
Daily Globe, March 20, 2003

1st missiles strike
Daily Herald, March 20, 2003


Logansport Pharos-Tribune
March 20, 2003


1988: Plane carries 8-year-old on kite
Eight-year-old DeAndra Anrig was flying her kite in a California park today when it was snagged by an airplane, lifting the young girl 10 feet off the ground and carrying her for more than 100 feet before she let go to avoid hitting a tree. "Little DeAndra Anrig was flying her kite when it suddenly started to fly her, her parents say," explained the Daily Herald on March 24, 1988. "She let go, but said she was still sore after two days' rest. The plane, meanwhile, is grounded because of damage apparently caused by getting tangled in the kite string."



Links to the Past
And Away She Went!
The Chronicle Telegram, March 23, 1988

What Goes Up…
The Post Standard, March 23, 1988

She Holds on to Kite String for a Wild Ride
Daily Herald, March 24, 1988


1976: Patty Hearst found guilty
Patricia Hearst, granddaughter of newspaper giant William Randolph Hearst, was convicted today of taking part in a terrorist bank robbery conducted by the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). "With their verdict, the jurors accepted the theory posed by many government witnesses that Miss. Hearst was a willing and eager bank robber, 'a rebel in search of a cause' – who identified fully with the terrorists who kidnapped her on Feb. 4, 1974," reported The Lincoln Star on March 21, 1976. NOTE: President Jimmy Carter later commuted her sentence and Hearst was released from prison in 1979. President Bill Clinton granted her an official pardon 22 years later.



Links to the Past
Patty Hearst Found Guilt of Holdup
Bucks County Courier Times, March 21, 1976

Continued: Patricia Hearst is Found Guilty


Jury Rejects Patty Hearst's Story
The Lincoln Star, March 21, 1976

Continued: Jury Finds Tania Portrait More Believable



Bucks County Courier Times
March 21, 1976


1966: World Cup is stolen
Soccer's top trophy, the World Cup, was stolen today while on display at Westminster Hall in London. "The trophy, a solid gold statuette of a winged figure insured for £30,000 ($90,000), went on exhibition Friday in connection with the World Cup finals in England in July. Raiders forced their way into the exhibition room in Central Hall, Westminster, shortly before noon," explained the Winnipeg Free Press on March 21, 1966. NOTE: Seven days after it was stolen, a dog discovered the trophy in a garden, wrapped in newspapers.



Links to the Past
Famous World Cup Stolen
Winnipeg Free Press, March 21, 1966

World Cup Caper
Winnipeg Free Press, March 22, 1966

Dog Finds World Cup in Garden
The Daily Intelligencer, March 28, 1966


1899: First woman is electrocuted
Today, Martha M. Place became the first woman to die in the electric chair. Place was sentenced to death after being found guilty of smothering her stepdaughter, Ida, to death. "Mrs. Martha Place was successfully electrocuted in the prison (Sing Sing) here at 11:01 a.m. today. It was pronounced the best execution that ever occurred here, and Dr. Harvey the prison physician, said death was instantaneous," informed The Marion Daily Star on March 20, 1899.



Links to the Past
"God Help Me," She Cried
The Mansfield News, March 20, 1899

Executed
The Marion Daily Star, March 20, 1899

Went Calmly to Her Death
The Portsmouth Herald, March 21, 1899


The Mansfield News
March 20, 1899


1852: Uncle Tom's Cabin is published
Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin was published today. The book quickly became a bestseller in the United States and England. "'Uncle Tom' is one of those led off to the far south, and then disposed of. Time passes, and he becomes a Christian, endures all manner of abuse and inhumanity, till finally the story closes with his death under the lash of a brutal overseer, or by his direction," reported the Milwaukee Daily Sentinel on June 2, 1852. NOTE: The novel, which focused on the life of a slave named Uncle Tom, made many of its readers re-think society's view of African–Americans and slavery.

Arkansas Senators aren't helping the fight against coal-burning power plants

King Coal
— By Kevin Drum | Fri March 13, 2009 11:26 AM PST
Barack Obama has promised to push cap-and-trade legislation this year, and one way of getting it approved in the Senate is to push it through via the budget reconciliation process, where it would require only 50 votes to pass. Elana Schor reports that this has run into a roadblock:


In a letter delivered to the Senate Budget Committee yesterday, eight Democratic senators joined 25 Republicans to defend the GOP's right to set a 60-vote margin for passing emissions limits.

"We oppose using the budget process to expedite passage of climate legislation," the senators, including eight centrist Democrats, wrote in their missive.

...Late Update: The eight Democratic senators who signed on to the letter are Robert Byrd (WV), Blanche Lincoln (AR), Ben Nelson (NE), Evan Bayh (IN), Mark Pryor (AR), Bob Casey (PA), Carl Levin (MI), and Mary Landrieu (LA).
Take a look at those names: six are from the midwest and the south, joined by Casey and Byrd. In other words, coal country senators. Nearly all the electricity generated in these regions comes from coal, and a lot of that coal comes from West Virginia and Pennsylvania, the #2 and #4 coal-producing states in the country.

This is a dynamic to watch. The battle over cap-and-trade isn't just between liberals and conservatives, it's also between regions. You'll find coal-fired electric plants all around the country, but the midwest and the south rely on it much more heavily than the west and the northeast, which generate a lot of their electricity via hydro and natural gas. Cap-and-trade will raise the price of coal-fired electricity more than any other kind, which means the price increases will hit the south and midwest especially hard.
This letter, then, isn't just a sign that there are some Democratic senators who feel strongly about not bending Senate rules. It's a sign that Democrats from the south and midwest are probably going to have to bribed to support cap-and-trade. The big question is, how? Can they be bought off in fairly benign, traditional ways, or will their price effectively mean the gutting of the legislation? Stay tuned.
Mother Jones story click here
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2009/03/king-coal

What name would make people understand climate change and global warming?

Time to Change "Climate Change"
Thursday 12 March 2009
by: George Monbiot | Visit article original @ The Guardian UK

What's clear from Copenhagen is that policymakers have fallen behind the scientists: global warming is already catastrophic.
The more we know, the grimmer it gets.
Presentations by climate scientists at this week's conference in Copenhagen show that we might have underplayed the impacts of global warming in three important respects:
• Partly because the estimates by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) took no account of meltwater from Greenland's glaciers, the rise in sea levels this century could be twice or three times as great as it forecast, with grave implications for coastal cities, farmland and freshwater reserves.
• Two degrees of warming in the Arctic (which is heating up much more quickly than the rest of the planet) could trigger a massive bacterial response in the soils there. As the permafrost melts, bacteria are able to start breaking down organic material that was previously locked up in ice, producing billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide and methane. This could catalyse one of the world's most powerful positive feedback loops: warming causing more warming.
• Four degrees of warming could almost eliminate the Amazon rainforests, with appalling implications for biodiversity and regional weather patterns, and with the result that a massive new pulse of carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere. Trees are basically sticks of wet carbon. As they rot or burn, the carbon oxidises. This is another way in which climate feedbacks appear to have been underestimated in the last IPCC report.
Apart from the sheer animal panic I felt on reading these reports, two things jumped out at me. The first is that governments are relying on IPCC assessments that are years out of date even before they are published, as a result of the IPCC's extremely careful and laborious review and consensus process. This lends its reports great scientific weight, but it also means that the politicians using them as a guide to the cuts in greenhouse gases required are always well behind the curve. There is surely a strong case for the IPCC to publish interim reports every year, consisting of a summary of the latest science and its implications for global policy.
The second is that we have to stop calling it climate change. Using "climate change" to describe events like this, with their devastating implications for global food security, water supplies and human settlements, is like describing a foreign invasion as an unexpected visit, or bombs as unwanted deliveries. It's a ridiculously neutral term for the biggest potential catastrophe humankind has ever encountered.

I think we should call it "climate breakdown." Does anyone out there have a better idea?
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The National Wildlife Federation reports on environmental success and coming action

National Wildlife Federation news on environmental efforts

Stand against coal

From: Bill McKibben, 350.org
Dear Friends,
There are moments in a nation's--and a planet's--history when it may be necessary for some to break the law in order to bear witness to an evil, bring it to wider attention, and push for its correction.
Today is one of those days.
In a few hours, the first big protest of the Obama era -- and the largest-ever civil disobedience against global warming in this country -- will take place against the not-very-scenic backdrop of the coal-fired Capitol Hill Power Plant in Washington DC.
Myself and people of every stripe will be risking arrest today, and I'm asking you to stand with me as it unfolds.
Please stand with the thousands gathering today in DC, and show the world that people everywhere are uniting behind a future free of coal--a future safe from the ravages of climate change.
Click here to stand in solidarity with this action: http://www.350.org/Coal-Free/

Here's the statement you'll be signing onto:
I share your vision of a coal-free future and a safe climate, not only in Washington DC--but all over the world. I stand in solidarity with the coalition of citizens working for a clean energy future for the entire planet.
You also have the option to add your personal statements of solidarity with the activists on the ground. We're trying to show as much support as possible in the next few hours--can you sign on now? http://www.350.org/Coal-Free/
With President Obama and a new US Congress, there is more possibility for climate action than ever before. It really feels like the U.S. is close to a breakthrough--and this protest can help create the political space a breakthrough requires.
Here's the backstory: Washington DC has seen its share of big protests over the years, and most of them center on the White House, the Mall or the Capitol.
But today's event is just a few blocks a way from the White House at the the Capitol Power Plant--a dirty symbol of the dirtiest business on Earth, the combustion of coal.
In that one plant -- owned and operated by our senators and representatives -- you can see all the filth that comes with coal. There are the particulates it spews into the air and hence the lungs of those Washington residents who enjoy breathing. There are the profits it hands to the coal industry, which is literally willing to level mountains across West Virginia and Kentucky to increase its fat margins. And most of all there is the invisible carbon dioxide it spews each day into the atmosphere, drying our forests, melting our glaciers and acidifying our oceans.
The power plant is only a symbol, of course -- a lunch counter or a bus station in the fight for environmental justice. We'll sit down at its gates for a single afternoon, but the message is much larger: it's time to start figuring out how to shut down every coal-fired plant on the planet. Success won't come right away because we're up against some of the world's richest corporations, but we have to start turning this tanker around someday, and tomorrow is that day.
Again, our efforts will be greatly helped if you stand in solidarity with this action: http://www.350.org/Coal-Free/
This may seem like an odd time to take to the streets -- after all, the new administration has done more in a month to fight global warming than all the presidents of the past 20 years. But in fact, it's the perfect moment. For one thing, our leaders may actually listen -- in the anti-science years of the Bush administration, global warming activists concentrated their work on state capitols, knowing that the federal government would never budge. Now, if we demonstrate that there's real public pressure, we may give the Democratic Congress and the White House some room to act.
More to the point, the time not to act is running out. Climate science has grown steadily darker in the past 18 months, ever since the rapid melt of Arctic sea ice in the summer of 2007 showed scientists that change was coming faster than they'd reckoned.
That message was underlined recently at the Washington meetings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, when Stanford researcher Christopher Field said: "We are basically looking now at a future climate that's beyond anything we've considered seriously in climate model simulations." Our foremost climatologist, NASA's James Hansen, has given that future a number -- any level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere beyond 350 parts per million, his team has demonstrated, is "incompatible with the planet on which civilization developed."
Since we're already past that number -- the carbon dioxide level is at 387 parts per million -- the fight is on. Indeed, by Hansen's calculation, the world will need to be out of the coal-burning business by 2030, and the West much sooner than that, if we're ever going to get back to 350. It's no accident that NASA's James Hansen announced he'll be on hand to get arrested. So will Gus Speth, who ran the United Nations Development Programme, and the farmer and author Wendell Berry who has seen the devastation of his native Kentucky.
And maybe most heartening, I'll be joined by over a thousand college students who will have just come from lobbying in the halls of Congress for clean energy. They'll have just wrapped up PowerShift '09--an climate convergence organized by a separate coaltion that promises to be a historic catalyst in this movement. These two complimentary tactics are a very good sign: a healthy movement is like a healthy ecosystem--marked by spectacular diversity. There are many ways to be a climate activist--lobbying, rallying, educating, and on and on and on. For me--today at least--being a climate activist means risking arrest with civil disobedience.
Getting the planet off coal -- getting the planet back to 350 -- will be the main political and economic challenge for the lifetimes of those college students. Those of us who are older won't live long enough to see the final victory, but we can help get it started, by lobbying, by writing e-mails -- and by sitting down in the street on an afternoon in March.
Please join me,
Bill McKibben
P.S. Please forward this message far and wide. If your friends and family share a vision for coal-free, clean energy future safe from climate change--and I'm quite sure at least some of them do--ask them to sign our solidarity statement by clicking here: http://www.350.org/coal-free/
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Gladys Tiffany
Omni Center for Peace, Justice & Ecology
Fayetteville, Arkansas USA
479-973-9049 -- gladystiffany@yahoo.com