Stop Requested

The nice Washington, DC Metrobus (number 10E) that runs on clean-burning natural gas - the one that I take to and from my home each workday - talks to me. I don't mean in the way that gods might talk to saints or devils to sinners or anything like that. I mean that, in a very soothing feminine voice, she announces which stops are coming next. "Herbert Street." "Arlington Ridge Road." That kind of talking.  And when someone pulls the cord for a stop she says, "Stop requested." Much nicer than a buzzer or ringer. Then the driver stops the bus and people get off to go their merry ways and do their important things, while my bus rolls on to its final destination. "Pentagon Station," she gently announces.  And I get off bus number 10E to take the subway into DC.

After I merrily arrived at work today to do my own thing, there was this new climate change conundrum in my daily in-box of environmental news items: Lisa Friedman wondered in an article in Climatewire (reprinted in Scientific American magazine), "If a country disappears (beneath a rising sea), is it still a country?" and "If entire populations are forced to relocate by rising seas as a result of climate change, do they remain citizens of a vanished country?"

The legal issue at question centers around the premise that national and international laws currently on the books all assume that coastlines are a constant.  But constant coastlines, like many other things thought unvarying, are not so constant in a world in which temperatures rise, and glaciers melt and icebergs calve into the sea at ever increasing rates.  The human rights issues at question are even more pressing and immediate than the legal: millions of people in low-lying regions around the world face the daunting prospect of watching their homes drown beneath rising seas, and their lives forcibly relocated elsewhere, as they become climate refugees.

According to the Friedman article, officials in the Marshall Islands, a Micronesian nation of 29 low-lying coral atolls in the Pacific Ocean, are campaigning to turn international attention toward the plight of it and other vulnerable countries around the globe.  In the Maldives, another of those susceptible, low-lying countries, President Mohamed Nasheed has declared that he plans to create a fund in anticipation of that country's 305,000 residents requiring future relocation.

Edward Cameron, former adviser to the Maldive government, says in the Scientific American piece that nations threatened with sinking beneath rising seas need answers to the myriad and complex legal questions of land, water and migration for their own sakes.  But, Cameron cautions, those countries also need to send a message to developed countries not acting on climate change mitigation; a message that "if you don't come up with a response, we're going to start looking at legal options." Even more important, Cameron notes, the international community needs to start viewing climate change from a human rights perspective.

Ironically, the Republic of Palau, which acknowledges that its very survival is threatened by climate change and the accompanying rising sea levels, has embarked on a mission to become a major supplier of oil and natural gas, the burning of which is among the chief culprits behind greenhouse gas accumulations and climate change. The tract to be initially explored is found in the waters of Palau's Kayangel state, located on the northern edge of the 300-mile long island nation. Palauan officials say the area is likely home to one of the world's largest oil fields.  The Marine Biology Coordinator for Palau Pacific Exploration, which has secured a million acre drilling concession on the Velasco Reef in Kayangel State, has determined that "the planned drilling will not impact the environment."  All is well; business as usual, in other words. 

For money's sake, Palau wants to pump that oil and natural gas. For us to burn in our cars and clean DC Metrobuses, and convert into greenhouse gases exhausting into the atmosphere. To melt the ice caps. To raise the seas. To drown the low-lying archipelago of Palau.  And the Marshall Islands.  And the Maldives.  And, even, New Orleans.

In the meantime climate legislation has been officially pronounced "dead" in both the U.S. House (by Representative Collin Peterson) and Senate (by Senator Mitch McConnell ); scientists warn that the entire ice mass of Greenland will disappear if the earth's temperature rises by as little as 2 degrees C; a group of nine Nobel laureates has announced that unless the world starts reducing greenhouse gas emissions within six years, we face devastation; the U.S. Geological Survey reports that many of Asia’s glaciers are retreating as result of climate change; Canada has declared that it will delay greenhouse gas emission reduction efforts for at least another five years; and a Chinese analysis of U.S. and Australian carbon dioxide emission reduction plans says they are inadequate and inconsequential.

"Stop requested!"

The End and The Beginning

The End and The Beginning
By Wislawa Szymborska
Translated from the Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh

After every war
someone has to tidy up.
Things won't pick
themselves up, after all.

Someone has to shove
the rubble to the roadsides
so the carts loaded the corpses
can get by.

Someone has to trudge
through the sludge and ashes,
through the sofa springs,
the shards of glass,
the bloody rags.

Truth, Perception and the Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone

Biologist T. H. Huxley once opined that “all truth, in the long run, is only common sense clarified.”  Therefore, it was with considerable interest that I opened up a story this morning that came across my "Gulf of Mexico dead zone" RSS feed entitled "The Truth About the Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone," and posted on July 6 on the Renewable Energy World web site by "sdreyer" of Growth Energy.  Growth Energy is a self-described "coalition of U.S. ethanol supporters" based here in Washington, DC.  The Growth Energy story seemed particularly relevant in light of another story that made the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle, also on July 6, that was headlined "Dead zone in gulf linked to ethanol production."  
I've read both stories now.  Each twice.  In the style of any well-written journalistic piece, the second article meets Huxley's clarified common sense test.  The former does not.  It can charitably be described as partial facts combined in illogical sequences to reach ill-founded conclusions.  Rather than reflecting common sense, clarified, the "Truth About the Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone" appears to have been crafted following the philosophy of Humpty Dumpty in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass: "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean."
Growth Energy's web site states that it is a group "committed to the promise of agriculture and growing America’s economy through cleaner, greener energy," a laudable goal and one that many, including myself, could readily espouse.  But open dialogue based upon truth is central to engaging all parties in the active pursuit of any objective, including that of Growth Energy's.  History has taught us that such open, honest, truthful dialogue can result in a collective wisdom founded upon mutually agreed-upon interests that reach value-driven goals.    And social science teaches that it is only the values that a group holds in common that will ultimately bind and drive a group toward a goal.
Opinions are a valuable and values-reflecting element of any human interaction.  However, views based on partial, ill-construed truths such as those put forth in "The Truth" opinion piece over time only serve to increase the intensity and depth of barriers already existing among parties or even raise barriers where none existed to begin with.  Opinions and the values they reflect should be well-founded upon truth that is, in the long run, common sense, clarified.  Not facts gone awry.

Investment?

I saw a couple of headlines this morning that made me think: a truly amazing impact being that it was a Monday morning and I was only half way through my first cup of coffee. The first headline said, "Investment in oil sands will boost U.S. economy - study." The second pronounced, "Senator calls for increased investment in domestic oil drilling." Now, neither article contained earth-shaking news or unusual content. The calls to increase oil sand development in Canada and domestic oil drilling are nothing we haven't heard before. What did catch my eye, though, was the common use of the term "investment." Because, as I understand the word, investment implies the active redirection of resources from those being consumed today, to those creating benefits in some future time. This definition of investment begs, I think, a critical question: In what future benefits are we investing, and for whom?

If the combustion of hyrdocarbons is fueling the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere (a given); if the accumulation of atmospheric carbon dioxide is contributing to a not-so-gradual shift in the world's climate (also a fact); and if that shift will dramatically alter the social, ecological and economic fabric of the world as we know it (a somewhat well-founded hypothesis), then why on earth would we call increased reliance on oil (or tar) sands and domestic oil an "investment?" The incongruous use of the term boggles the mind - even a mind only half awake on a Monday morning and running on just one-half cup of caffeine!

Interestingly, the use of the word "investment" in such a context pays ironic homage to the word's roots. "Invest" finds its meaning in the Latin word investire, which means to "clothe" or "surround." And doubtless, burning more fossil fuels will generate more carbon dioxide that will "clothe" or "surround" the earth with an atmospheric shroud of heat-trapping carbon dioxide: a shroud and resulting climate change that will eventually render our past reliance upon the world's natural resources totally unpredictable.

If we are investing in anything by increasing our future reliance upon hyrdocarbon based fuels, it is a future of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and resultant climatic change. If we are to have any chance of avoiding that chaos, today's investment should be in alternative sources of energy; not one founded upon vesting the earth in a thickening blanket of climate-altering gases.

To Be or Not

As I was walking to the bus stop this morning and passing through a park area near our house, I could smell the newness of the plants and soil refreshed by last night's heavy rains in the Washington, DC area. It had been very dry in the area recently before yesterday's rains. The ground was hard and parched. Many plants - grasses, shrubs and trees - were starting to reach their wilting points. And the typical urban response of turning on the sprinklers at night was not putting a dent into an emerging water deficit. Yesterday's half-inch, plus, rainfall will help.

We are fortunate in the eastern states to have abundant water. So, I'm not too concerned of the prospects of a long-term drought in the DC area. And I know elsewhere in the Northeast and Midwest, fresh water supplies are fortunately very abundant. Pennsylvania, my home state, has more stream miles than any other state besides Alaska. The Great Lakes hold about one-fifth of the world's fresh water supply. And the Mississippi River discharges roughly somewhere between 200 and 700 thousand cubic feet of fresh water each second.

The abundance of water that we enjoy is not matched everywhere. Dozens of countries obtain most of their water from sources outside their own borders. Water withdrawals from rivers bordering multiple jurisdictions are contentious (i.e., various Indian states, U.S. and Mexico, the Middle East). And as glaciers continue to melt worldwide, those countries and regions dependent on glacial melt (China and India) and snowpack melt (Western U.S.) for freshwater supplies are likely to see less reliable or diminishing supplies. Three news reports from just this past week highlight a growing incidence of water shortages worldwide, in places like the U.S. Southwest, Middle East and India.

Some who take note of these growing trends and who have abundant water resources available within their regions have taken the initiative to protect those water supplies from outside exploitation. A prime, recent example would be the governors from the eight Great Lakes states. On October 3, 2008 President Bush signed a joint resolution of Congress consenting to the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact (The U.S. and Canadian governments have entered into a similar agreement.). The signature marked the final step in a Compact negotiation and approval process reaching back into the 1980s, and enabling the protection of Great Lakes water for future generations to enjoy and utilize-individuals, businesses, industries. And the ongoing protection of the lakes' waters will help secure the rich natural heritage of fish, birds, mammals and other wildlife for which the Great Lakes region is renowned.

Not only are the volumes of Great Lakes water being protected, but the quality of those waters is being maintained and restored through the collective, organized and concerted efforts of the Great Lakes government, business, conservation and grassroots communities. For more than a century now, individuals, governmental bodies, companies, agencies and organizations have joined together to protect and revitalize the international treasure that is the Great Lakes. The results of those collective efforts can be most recently seen in the $400-plus billion Great Lakes restoration appropriation making it way presently through the U.S. House and Senate.

The Mississippi River Basin, like the Great Lakes, is an internationally renowned and treasured natural resource. And like the Great Lakes, people in the region and around the country care for and value the waters of the Mississippi River. But the waters of the basin are not protected from those who might want to export them for outside use. There is no "Mississippi River Water Resources Compact." And no concerted effort to protect and restore the quality of the River waters from the source to the Gulf of Mexico exists. None to the scale and degree of cooperation so evident in the Great Lakes basin. None remotely as effective as the collaborative that has succeeded in those lakes to the north and east.

That model for success is there for all to see, draw from and apply toward the effective protection and restoration of great water bodies world wide; for the protection and restoration of the Mississippi basin waters.

As the world's population booms; as demands for fresh, clean water soar; and as available supplies of that resource dwindle, those of us with abundant fresh water within our communities can choose to assure its presence for our and future generations. Or not. We can choose to use the models of connection, engagement, cooperation and collaboration - models like that employed to such great success in the Great Lakes. Or not.

The choice is ours to make. And the time to make the choice is now. Because in the end, without enough fresh water, the question will no longer be whether to cooperate or not. It will be whether to be . . . or not. - Mark Gorman

Shifting Boundaries

A Christian Science Monitor article caught my eye this morning: "Climate change could redraw national borders." The article mentions, by way of example, that as the ridge crests defined by the glaciers in the southern Alps shift due to glacial melting, the border between Italy and Switzerland, defined by treaty as those ridge crests, has likewise shifted - northward by hundreds of feet. Melting glaciers may also play a role in redefining the boundaries in already-disputed sections of India’s borders with Pakistan and China; a somewhat chilling scenario, if you'll pardon the reverse pun. And as lowland and coastal countries become more and more submerged by rising seas, those coastal boundaries, too, will change.

Sometimes boundary changes are forced upon us, as in the cases above. At other times, if we are prescient enough, we can shift our personal, political and positional boundaries - our perspectives if you will - voluntarily. Impending changes in our climate, along with all of the attendant changes in economy, ecology, lifestyle, health, natural and human built resources, hold the power to force a change in perspective upon us - a change in the boundaries that we may be very comfortable living within at the present. But forced change is rarely the preferred, efficient, agreeable and enjoyable path forward. And unlike the shifting ridge crests, our perspectives are not physically or legally defined. We can choose, ahead of time, voluntarily, to listen to others, to find common ground and to follow shared interests.

Before those changes are forced upon us.

Before the foundations of our relationships literally shift beneath us, as assuredly as the glaciers are melting and the boundaries shifting in the Alps and Himalayas. - Mark Gorman

Climatic Convergence

Two bits of climate news converged in ironic fashion over the past several days, as seemingly random bits of news tend to do now and again.

The first was Senator Barbara Boxer's (D-CA) announcement last week that the committee she chairs, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, will wait until after the August Congressional recess to take up consideration of climate change legislation. With several other pressing topics up for Senate consideration before the recess (i.e., Supreme Court nominee confirmation, health care, appropriations), the EPW Committee would have been hard pressed to give the complex and important climate legislation its due attention before hand. Even beyond that relatively short Committee delay, full Senate passage of climate change legislation this year is less than certain, portending even further delays.

I noticed the second news headline yesterday (Sunday) in The Observer article entitled: "Wild weather in the year ahead, scientists predict," in which scientists predict that along with "droughts, floods and other extreme events, the next few years are also likely to be the hottest on record." All the result of an evolving "global "El Niño" phenomenon exacerbat(ing) the impact of global warming."

Now I wouldn't want to wish droughts, flooding, heat waves or other "extreme events" on anyone, particularly the world's poor, who often seem to be at most risk from such events. And the Upper Mississippi River basin certainly has seen more than its fair share of flooding over the years. However, in light of the human tendency to react under crisis with more urgency and certainty that when not in crisis mode, a decision to delay serious consideration of climate legislation in the short term may result in more serious consideration of climate legislation in the long term, if that short term gives us a glimpse into what a climate-changed future might hold.

What that future might hold for the Upper Midwest was outlined in a June report by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which “summarizes the science of climate change and the impacts of climate change on the United States, now and in the future.” Specifically, for the Midwestern U.S., the authors predict "an increase in precipitation in winter and spring, more heavy downpours, and greater evaporation in summer, leading to more periods of both floods and water deficits." More "droughts, floods and other extreme events," in other words.

El Niño means "the child" in Spanish. Perhaps it will be a child who brings clarity to the climate change debate. - Mark Gorman