One Person Can Change The World
If you ever met me in real life you would eventually hear me go off on a rant about global warming, climate change, politics, etc. One of the main reasons I created this site was to provide a platform for my views, and the views of other people, who are interested in changing the way the world works. I feel like there is a deep soul crushing dread facing people my age (old enough to know about problems, but young enough to not have been the cause of them). People in their late teens/20’s/early 30’s look out at a world filled with massive, complicated, serious problems.
I don’t know about others, but these problems (global warming, world wide conflict, climate refugees, peak oil, invasive species, species extinction, the list goes on and on) puts a very large “But” into all my future plans. For instance, “I would really like to own a home some day, BUT, if climate change gets really bad I figure I will just have to move to where ever the earth can support me” or “If I started a family it would be great, BUT, if global conflict grows due to peak oil and climate refugees I really don’t want to bring children into a world like that.” or “Wouldn’t it be cool to visit *location*, BUT, can I really justify the carbon footprint of that plane trip.” or “I really like to eat fish, BUT, overfishing and mercury pollution from coal plants may have made my fish supply unhealthy.” You get the idea.
There are also people who deal with these problems by ignoring them. They would rather live in a state of blissful ignorance. The main problem with this strategy is that every day this option is available to fewer and fewer people (mostly the rich, and the inhabitants of rich countries). This option is slowly being removed because people are starting to notice the effects on a personal scale more and more. The spring flowers are coming up earlier and earlier every year, gas prices go up 10 cents a week, your basement flooded for the first time you can remember, the pine trees in your back yard were killed by some invasive beetle species, you can’t afford to feed your family anymore, your beach house was washed away in a storm, your home was destroyed by a winter tornado, your entire city was flooded by a giant hurricane… The list goes on and on. More and more people are waking up to the absolute need to radically change their lives to a sustainable model.
That is why when I got this email yesterday I was truly moved. I often feel like I am “going through the motions” like Cassandra I am screaming about the end and no one is really paying attention. It is good to have your faith restored once in a while.
Ann writes:
A while back, you guys sent me a book “Stop Global Warming Now”.. It sounds corny, but it has helped to change my life. I have used that book to help stop a toll road from going through my subdivision, historic oaks and the Spanish Lake Basin (home to 2,000+ year old cypress trees and bald eagle habitats). I am pretty much taking over my parish’s (aka; county) recycling efforts and working with a coalition of 11 environmental groups to fight a coal fired plant in Baton Rouge, LA. Before, I was just a mom who wanted to use less energy at home. I am well on my way to a new career and I have never been happier. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Thank you Ann! You really made my day and I hope you are having a wonderful time being the kind of person you want to be. Thank you for letting me know that our simple gift made a difference in your life. If you want to share your own story of positive change please do so in the comments, who knows the best ones might just get a present (hint: I still have some cool books laying around someone might want…)
Support AmeriCorps!
I spent a good number of years in various AmeriCorps programs, and let me tell you it was by far one of the best times I have ever had in life. That is why I am pretty excited about this pending legislation. Be sure to contact your local senator/representative and let them know you are all for this great bill.
On Friday, May 16, Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) will introduce the AmeriCorps Act of 2008, legislation which will:
- Raise the education award to $6,185, the average annual cost of tuition and fees for an instate student at a four year public university;
- Make the education award tax exempt;
- Restore the Corporation’s previous authority to partner with other Federal agencies to use national service as a strategy to carry out Departments’ priorities; and,
- Promote the Corporation for National and Community Service to Cabinet level status.
Ever supports this effort to recognize the importance of service and to promote access to education by increasing the value of the Segal AmeriCorps Education Award. Since inception in 1994, more than 540,000 citizens have served through AmeriCorps to address the unmet needs of our nation. These citizens have given over 700,000,000 hours toward improving the lives of other Americans.
Click here to read the bill language.
You can build support for national service by encouraging your Senators to join as original cosponsors of the bill. Call today; the deadline for cosponsors is Thursday, May 15th at 4:00pm.
Action Steps for the AmeriCorps Act of 2008:
1. Call the Capitol operator at (202) 224-3121 to be connected to your Senator.
2. Ask your elected official to be an original cosponsor of the AmeriCorps Act of 2008.
3. To cosponsor, interested offices should contact Mary Ellen McGuire with Senator Dodd’s office by email: MaryEllen_McGuire@help.senate.gov. Deadline for cosponsors is Thursday, May 15th at 4pm.
New Release of AmeriCorps Longitudinal Study
The Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) released the results of a new evaluation that takes a close look at the long-term impacts that a single year of service in AmeriCorps has on its participants. The study tracked members who participated in either the AmeriCorps State and National or the AmeriCorps NCCC program between 1999 and 2000, and the results prove that AmeriCorps has positive effects on its members and helps develop individuals who are high engaged in promoting the public good in their careers and communities. Specific findings.
- AmeriCorps generates civic leaders.
- AmeriCorps is a pipeline to public service careers in government and the nonprofit sector.
- AmeriCorps has an even greater impact on the public service career choices of minority members and those individuals from disadvantaged circumstances.
Please click here to read the full report, “Still Serving: AmeriCorps’ Impact on Alumni Eight Years Later,” and access related fact sheets on the Corporation for National and Community Service website.
AmeriCorps changed my life, it was amazing and I encourage everyone to give a year or more of their lives to service. Please support this legislation by calling your senator and getting them to co-sposor this bill.
1 Billion Trees? We Gonna Plant 7 Billion Trees!
A unique worldwide tree planting initiative, aimed at empowering citizens to corporations and people up to presidents to embrace the climate change challenge, has now set its sights on planting seven billion trees (read report here PDF).
It follows the news, also announced today, that the Billion Tree Campaign has in just 18 months catalyzed the planting of two billion trees, double its original target.
The campaign, spearheaded by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), was unveiled in 2006 as one response to the threat but also the opportunities of global warming, as well as to the wider sustainability challenges from water supplies to biodiversity loss.
To date the initiative, which is under the patronage of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Kenyan Green Belt Movement founder Professor Wangari Maathai and His Serene Highness Prince Albert II of Monaco, has broken every target set and has catalyzed tree planting in close to 155 countries.
Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director, said today: “When the Billion Tree Campaign was launched at the Climate Convention meeting in Nairobi in 2006, no one could have imagined it could have flowered so fast and so far. But it has given expression to the frustrations but also the hopes of millions of people around the world”.
“Having exceeded every target that has been set for the campaign, we are now calling on individuals, communities, business and industry, civil society organizations and governments to evolve this initiative onto a new and even higher level by the crucial climate change conference in Copenhagen in late 2009,” he said.
“In 2006 we wondered if a billion tree target was too ambitious; it was not. The goal of two billion trees has also proven to be an underestimate. The goal of planting seven billion trees, equivalent to just over a tree per person alive on the planet, must therefore also be do-able given the campaign’s extraordinary track record and the self-evident worldwide support,” he added.
The Billion Tree Campaign has become a practical expression of private and public concern over global warming.
Heads of State including the presidents of Indonesia, the Maldives, Mexico, Turkey and Turkmenistan as well as businesses; cities; faith, youth and community groups have enthusiastically taken part. Individuals have accounted for over half of all participants.
- In a single day in Uttar Pradesh, India, 10.5 million trees were planted.
- 35 million young people in Turkey have been mobilized to plant trees.
- 500,000 schoolchildren in sub-Saharan Africa and the United Kingdom have become engaged.
It has also attracted the support of multilateral organizations including the Convention on Biological Diversity whose new Green Wave initiative was launched in advance of its important conference being held in Bonn, Germany later this month, and which supports the Billion, now Seven Billion, Tree Campaign.
Tree planting remains one of the most cost-effective ways to address climate change. Trees and forests play a vital role in regulating the climate since they absorb carbon dioxide, containing an estimated 50% more carbon than the atmosphere. Deforestation, in turn, accounts for over 20% of the carbon dioxide humans generate, rivaling the emissions from other sources.
Trees also play a crucial role in providing a range of products and services to rural and urban populations, including food, timber, fiber, medicines and energy as well as soil fertility, water and biodiversity conservation.
“The Billion Tree Campaign has not only helped to mobilize millions of people to respond to the challenges of climate change, it has also opened the door, especially for the rural poor, to benefit from the valuable products and services the trees provide,” said Dennis Garrity, Director General of the Nairobi-based World Agroforestry Centre. “Smallholder farmers could also benefit from the rapidly growing global carbon market by planting and nurturing trees,” he said.
The two billionth tree was put into the ground as part of an agroforestry project carried out by the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP). It now planted 60 million trees in 35 countries to improve food security. This news comes as the United Nations calls for resolute action to end the global food crisis which affects an estimated 73 million people in 80 countries around the world.
In announcing the agency’s contribution to the Billion Tree Campaign, WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran said: “WFP is concerned about rising costs of food and fuel which inevitably hit the ‘bottom billion’ hardest. More people will require WFP assistance at a time when WFP’s current programmes are reaching fewer due to the critical funding gap created by rising costs.”
In terms of geographic distribution, Africa is the leading region with over half of all tree plantings. Regional and national governments organized the most massive plantings, with Ethiopia leading the count at 700 million, followed by Turkey (400 million), Mexico (250 million), and Kenya (100 million).
The campaign has also generated significant appeal in post-conflict and post-disaster environments. In acting upon the words of the campaign’s patron Wangari Maathai “when we plant trees, we plant the seeds of peace and seeds of hope,” communities in Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Iraq, Liberia and Somalia contributed to the global effort with over 2 million trees.
Furthermore, mangrove plantings were organized by Planète Urgence in Banda Aceh and other Indonesian provinces recovering from the December 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, while Replant New Orleans initiative in the United States sponsored a planting of fruit-bearing trees to breathe new life into a community struggling in the aftermath of the 2005 Hurricane Katrina.
The private sector pitched in as well, accounting for almost 6% of all trees planted. Multinational corporations including Bayer, Toyota, Yves Rocher, Accor Group of Hotels and Tesco Lotus supported the campaign, as did hundreds of medium and small-sized enterprises the world over.
The Billion Tree Campaign has further highlighted the cultural and spiritual dimension of trees with groups as diverse as the International Olympic Committee, the World Scouting Movement, SOS Sahel Initiative or yet “Geiko and Maiko for Forests”, Japanese geishas from the hometown of the Kyoto Protocol, actively participating in the initiative.
“The Billion Tree Campaign is UNEP’s call to the nearly 7 billion people sharing our planet today to take simple, positive steps to protect our climate. It is a defining issue of our era that can only be tackled through individual and collective action. I am convinced that the new target will be met ? one tree at a time,” concluded Executive Director Steiner.
Solar Power Surges: Up 51% in 2007
Global production of solar photovoltaic (PV) cells increased 51 percent in 2007, to 3,733 megawatts, according to the latest Vital Signs Update from the Worldwatch Institute, produced in collaboration with the Prometheus Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
More than 2,935 megawatts (MW) of solar modules were installed in 2007, according to early estimates, bringing cumulative global installations of PVs since 1996 to more than 9,740 MW—enough to meet the annual electricity demand of more than 3 million homes in Europe.
“Thanks to strong, smart policies in countries like Germany and Spain, the PV industry is making great strides in efficiency and cost, bringing solar power closer to price parity with fossil fuels,” says Janet Sawin, Worldwatch Senior Researcher and author of the update.
Over the past year, Europe—led by Germany—surpassed Japan to lead the world in solar cell manufacturing, producing an estimated 1,063 MW in 2007. Thanks to government policies that guarantee high payments for solar power fed into the electric grid, Germany remains the world leader in solar PV installations, accounting for almost half the world total in 2007. About 40,000 people are now employed in the PV industry in Germany.
Spain ranked second after Germany for total installations in 2007, but accounts for only an estimated 3 percent of global production. As in Germany, the Spanish market is being driven by a strong guaranteed price for PV electricity.
Despite a dramatic increase in solar cell production in the United States, up 48 percent to 266 MW, the nation’s share of global production and installations continued to fall in 2007.
In contrast, China raced past the United States for PV cell manufacturing in 2006 to place third globally, and it now ranks second only to Japan for national production. Over the past two years, China’s PV production has increased more than sixfold, to 820 MW in 2007. Despite these impressive numbers, the domestic market remains small and most PV cells made in China are exported to Europe.
“With billions of dollars invested in the solar energy technologies in the last 12 months, the PV sector is primed for accelerating its impact in both centralized and distributed generation at increasingly competitive costs,” says Travis Bradford, President of the Prometheus Institute. “As it reaches widespread cost parity in the next few years, demand will flourish in many places around the world simultaneously.”
Solar PV prices declined slightly in 2007, with even greater reductions held back by the hot pace of demand and a continued shortage of polysilicon, an essential ingredient for conventional solar cells. Analysts expect much more dramatic price drops—perhaps as much as 50 percent in the next two years—as more polysilicon becomes available, production and installation are further scaled up, manufacturing efficiencies increase, and more advanced technologies are introduced. As a result, solar electricity could soon be a competitive alternative to conventional retail power in many regions, including California and southern Europe.
According to Sawin, “PV and other renewables offer significant potential to meet global energy needs while addressing climate change, enhancing energy security, and creating jobs. Scaling up renewables is primarily a matter of political will and enacting strong, consistent policies that create demand.”
Normal People And Climate Change: One Womans Journey
I got a really interesting email from Sheila Hayman who has just written an interesting book about how a “normal” person is dealing with the challenges of global warming. I asked her to write a bit more about herself and her book and here is what she sent me.
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What do you do if you find yourself, over the course of a decade, more and more convinced of the need to make principled changes, sacrifice your petty comforts, and crusade to make others do the same –
- but meanwhile discover you’re still married to the same person you always were, and he thinks everything is just fine the way it is?
You have two options; get divorced, or see the funny side. I knew many years ago that my husband and I were different; the choice was whether to decide this meant ‘fundamentally incompatible’, or ‘two halves of a perfect Platonic whole’ - and by the way, try lightening up. The second option sounded cheaper, and easier on the children.
My husband was horribly confused by it all. He expected to share his declining years with the woman who drove a 1968 Pontiac Firebird ragtop, and thought nothing of flying the Atlantic for a wedding. Suddenly he finds himself shackled to a gloomy Cassandra who mainlines ‘Permaculture Monthly’ and goes round shouting at the children to turn off the lights. But somehow he survived, and responded to it all with English pragmatism. I decided we had to compost; he built me a compost bin. I moaned every time he switched on the dryer; he put up a clothes line (and hung the clothes on it).
Meanwhile, I began writing it as a comic novel, a relatively harmless vent for my frustrations. It ended up taking years, as novels will, and meanwhile I’d acquired a mass of fascinating information (80% of the world’s buttons are made in one city in China; scientists have identified a cow that gives naturally low-fat milk, and called her Marge…) and a slew of bizarre enthusiasms and magazine subscriptions that I felt an inexplicable compulsion to share.
So the book needed a web site as well. And the book became Mrs Normal Saves the World, and the web site is called MrsNormal.com. It’s just that; stuff to add a few jokes along the path to virtue, sort out the confusions of ordinary people trying to tramp it, and catalyze them into doing something. Because we can all do something, even if it’s not something huge.
In the book, the marriage almost implodes, and her children are almost terminally alienated, but in the end, Mrs Normal is revealed to be heroic, albeit not in the way she expects (it’s a comedy, after all). And they all love her more than ever, and everything is as peachy as it can be.
Well, I wrote it. I had a right to make it end like that. History has yet to reveal what will happen to the real Mrs Normal. Log on and find out…
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It sounds like a really interesting read, and I might serve as a good guide for other “normal” people ready to make the switch to a more sustainable way of living. Check out her website here MrsNormal.com.
Global Warming Hurting More Than Polar Bears
Polar bearsfighting for survival in the face of a rapid decline of polar ice have made the Arctic a poster child for the negative effects of climate change. But new research shows that species living in the tropics likely face the greatest peril in a warmer world.
A team led by University of Washington scientists has found that while temperature changes will be much more extreme at high latitudes, tropical species have a far greater risk of extinction with warming of just a degree or two. That is because they are used to living within a much smaller temperature range to begin with, and once temperatures get beyond that range many species might not be able to cope.
“There’s a strong relationship between your physiology and the climate you live in,” said Joshua Tewksbury, a UW assistant professor of biology. “In the tropics many species appear to be living at or near their thermal optimum, a temperature that lets them thrive. But once temperature gets above the thermal optimum, fitness levels most likely decline quickly and there may not be much they can do about it.”
Arctic species, by contrast, might experience temperatures ranging from subzero to a comparatively balmy 60 degrees Fahrenheit. They typically live at temperatures well below their thermal limit, and most will continue to do so even with climate change.
“Many tropical species can only tolerate a narrow range of temperatures because the climate they experience is pretty constant throughout the year,” said Curtis Deutsch, an assistant professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Our calculations show that they will be harmed by rising temperatures more than would species in cold climates.
“Unfortunately, the tropics also hold the large majority of species on the planet,” he said.
Tewksbury and Deutsch are lead authors of a paper detailing the research, published in the May 6 print edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The work took place while Deutsch was a UW postdoctoral researcher in oceanography.
The scientists used daily and monthly global temperature records from 1950 through 2000, and added climate model projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for warming in the first years of the 21st century. They compared that information with data describing the relationship between temperatures and fitness for a variety of temperate and tropical insect species, as well as frogs, lizards and turtles. Fitness levels were measured by examining population growth rates in combination with physical performance.
“The direct effects of climate change on the organisms we studied appear to depend a lot more on the organisms’ flexibility than on the amount of warming predicted for where they live,” Tewksbury said. “The tropical species in our data were mostly thermal specialists, meaning that their current climate is nearly ideal and any temperature increases will spell trouble for them.”
As temperatures fluctuate, organisms do what they can to adapt. Polar bears, for example, develop thick coats to protect them during harsh winters. Tropical species might protect themselves by staying out of direct sunlight in the heat of the day, or by burrowing into the soil.
However, since they already live so close to their critical high temperature, just a slight increase in air temperature can make staying out of the sun a futile exercise, and the warming might come too fast for creatures to adapt their physiologies to it, Tewksbury said.
Other authors of the paper are Raymond Huey, Kimberly Sheldon, David Haak and Paul Martin of the University of Washington and Cameron Ghalambor of Colorado State University. The research was funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the UW Program on Climate Change.
The work has indirect implications for agriculture in the tropics, where the bulk of the world’s human population lives. The scientists plan further research to examine the effects of climate change, particularly hotter temperatures, on tropical crops and the people who depend on them.
“Our research focused only on the impact of changes in temperature, but warming also will alter rainfall patterns,” Deutsch said. “These effects could be more important for many tropical organisms, such as plants, but they are harder to predict because hydrological cycle changes are not as well understood.”
Seafoam Hits Fan Over Hurricane Research
Kerry Emanuel, MIT professor of meteorology, ignited a storm of worldwide media attention in 2005, when he published a paper in Nature linking global warming with increased hurricane intensity. The paper appeared just three weeks before hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, and the reported connection with climate change spawned big headlines.
In the years since, a number of scientific papers have appeared on the subject, some supporting Emanuel’s original findings, some disputing them, and a vigorous debate has raged on. So it’s no surprise that when Emanuel published another paper on the subject earlier this month, it quickly attracted attention.
While the first paper looked at the record of actual hurricanes for the last 30 years, the new one used computer models to look both backward in time and ahead at what could happen two centuries from now. The results were a bit more complex than the earlier ones. Below is an interview with him about the subject and the media coverage.
Q: How did the new results differ from your 2005 paper?
A: I got results with a mixed message. On the one hand, it pretty much backed up the conclusions from what had happened earlier: There was a big increase in storm power. On the other hand, when that technique was used to go forward in time, the increase in hurricane power was much more modest. Although we get variations from one model to another [of the seven global circulation models used in this study], even the greatest increases were no more than what we’ve already seen. So there’s a dichotomy — what you see going into the future is not nearly as dramatic as what you would get if you just extrapolate from the past.
Q: How do you interpret that discrepancy?
A: First, it might be because the past had little to do with climate change. Second, it might be because there’s a discrepancy in the model. Or third, less likely, the climate may be different in a rapidly changing world than in one that has equilibrated. I don’t have a strong bias as to which one of these is responsible.
Q: What does this say about the connection between global warming and hurricane power?
A: Often these increases in hurricane power, thanks largely to my paper, are seen as directly related to global warming. But it should be seen as more complex than that.
Q: How much confidence do you have in the new method used in this paper?
A: The technique pretty much verifies what we see in nature. It checks out well when we apply past data — it predicts hurricane activity that’s pretty consonant with what we see. We get about the right number and magnitude of hurricanes. We’re inferring the hurricanes from the climate data. That means that the technique works.
Q: How do you feel about the media coverage of the new paper?
A: I thought [the Houston Chronicle story] wasn’t bad except for the title [which was “Hurricane expert reconsiders global warming’s impact”]. The actual content was okay. In other cases, the people you expect to put a spin on it, put a spin on it. Skeptics’ blogs reported that I’d reversed my position. Other blogs latched onto the fact that we’re still predicting a very substantial increase. There’s a lot to spin.
How do you write a paper that you know could be spun both ways? You just put out a paper that lays it out as best you can.
Q: Were you surprised by the reaction?
A: It is treacherous. Most of what I publish is not subject to public scrutiny; I’m writing for fellow scientists. But in this charged atmosphere [on global warming], most of what you write gets dissected by people outside the community.
[The Chronicle story] was clever to point out that people who are crowing [over the claim of a reversal] are in effect crowing over the same climate models that they spend most of their time criticizing.
When Fox News called me up, they started from the premise that I’d reversed myself. I said that’s really not true, it’s just that things are more complicated. It was a very short interview. I guess that’s what happens when people don’t spin things the way they think.
Q: Where does this research go from here?
A: The first thing we’re going to try to do is to try to figure out why the simulation of the last 25 years did what it did. Was it the temperature changing, the wind shear changing, the humidity changing — what was it that caused the increase? Then, we can run the models forward [with different conditions] to see what’s responsible for what. I think we will be able to figure out why the future effects differ from what’s happened in the recent past. That’s what everyone wants to know — the ‘why.’
Also, we can look at more regional effects. All we looked at was basin-wide effects. There could be differences — for example, hurricanes could be more easily steered offshore, or more preferentially steered onshore. Even if the basin-wide effects are the same, you can get regional differences that could be important. The technique can do that, but we haven’t looked at that yet.
Why It Pays To Build Efficiently
One of the things I hear a lot in my new position is that people want to build their new homes energy efficiently but think that they cannot afford to. Whenever I hear this I always say without hesitation “You can’t afford NOT to build you home energy efficiently!”. There are huge misconceptions out there about the costs, methods and effectiveness of building new homes efficiently. Most new home builders do not help the situation and will tell prospective customers that adding more insulation to their house, installing a geothermal or solar heating system or building to take advantage of passive solar gains will add an unreasonable amount of cost and time delay to the building process.
Fortunately there are free resources out there for anyone to dispel these myths. A free software package from Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) can be downloaded called HOT2000 and it allows anyone to do energy modeling on their home and actually forecast what various changes will do to the energy consumption of there homes! It has a fairly shallow learning curve, with a windows interface, drop down menus and check boxes, and comes with a good help file and example files to build on.
Based on three common home plans (a 1600sf rancher, a 2400sf two story executive and a 1500sf split entry) I modelled what the difference was in energy consumption between standard construction (2×6 walls w/ fibreglass batts, blown-in attic insulation to 9″ and uninsulated basements) and minimal energy efficient upgrades (addition 1-1/2″ rigid foam to walls, 5 more inches of attic insulation and 2″ rigid foam to foundation walls and slabs) and found that in almost all cases the additional costs of the upgrades to the mortgage payment was offset by almost double in monthly energy savings! The bottom line was the cost of ownership (mortgage AND energy bills) was always lower with the energy efficient home over the standard construction home. It broke down like this:
2 Story executive style home:
$1355 in energy savings per year or $112 per month
$6983 added to mortgage or $45 per month
1 Story ranch style home:
$1327 in energy savings per year or $110 per month
$8110 added to mortgage or $52 per month
Split entry home:
$700 in energy savings per year or $58 per month
$6875 added to mortgage or $45 per month
*savings are using Hot2000 with PEI energy costs per April 1, 2008; mortgage costs are estimates.
This makes sense intuitively as split entries are fundamentally a more efficient style home and thus the savings, while still worth while, aren’t as great as the bigger less efficient plans. I also ran the numbers using a standard slab on grade (outside perimeter of slab only insulated) for the rancher and executive homes and going to a fully insulated slab on grade and the savings are still substantial. We are in the process of running numbers on the costs and savings of super insulated buildings and on alternative forms of building but the message seems to be consistant:
INSULATION IS ONE OF THE BEST METHOD OF SAVING ENERGY!!!
Related and perhaps more important is the correlation between home size and energy costs. For every cubic foot you reduce the size of your home you lower your mortgage AND reduce you energy costs!
These savings are all BEFORE you look at heating/cooling/ventilation equipment. It’s important to eliminate the waste before looking at efficiency of equipment. If you can make your home as well insulated and tight as possible you may be able to go with a smaller capacity heating system which adds another level of energy savings to the mix before you even look at the efficiency rating!
If you are building a new home soon or are considering renovationg your existing home to make it more efficient, I hope you consider insulation home size as much or more than efficient appliances and equipment, it really is the right place to start.
Read more tips at greenspree.ca or http://thesietch.org/mysietch/greenspree
Governor Patrick Trying To Make Massachusetts Into Green Energy Hub
Deval Patrick (my governor), making his second appearance at MIT this month, told an enthusiastic crowd at Kresge Auditorium on Tuesday–the 39th anniversary of the first Earth Day–that clean energy has the potential to bring about an economic bonanza for the commonwealth at the same time that it improves the planet’s well-being.
“If we get this right, the whole world will be our customer,” Patrick said of his plans to make Massachusetts a hotbed of both innovation and implementation in solar, wind and other clean energy alternatives.
Patrick said state regulations must be updated to give renewable energy projects a fair shake. At present, he said, there are “built-in biases” that favor fossil fuel. For example, a provision that allows the state to override local objections and permit the construction of new power plants only applies to large plants, and thus almost exclusively affects fossil-fuel plants. “Ironically,” he said, “the only [renewable] plant large enough to be affected by this law is the most controversial–Cape Wind, which I enthusiastically support.”
Despite strong opposition to that offshore wind project from most of Massachusetts’ political leaders, Patrick said that if it does get built as the nation’s first major offshore wind installation, it would be a powerful symbol of a new direction in energy policy.
A new energy reform bill now being hammered out in a state legislature conference committee, Patrick said, “will revolutionize energy policy in this state.” One of the reforms he wants to see incorporated in the bill is a restructuring of electric utility regulation to promote energy efficiency–”the cleanest energy of all,” he said.
Currently, rate structures “reward our utilities for selling as much as they can,” but that must be changed in order to reap the enormous benefits of efficiency. Changing that policy will be “good news for consumers, and good news for renewable energy,” he said.
In addition, to promote the development of solar energy, Massachusetts has forged “the first alliance of utilities and solar manufacturers in the whole country,” Patrick said. One sign of that alliance is the recent announcement of Evergreen Solar–a manufacturer of solar panels that was a spin-off of MIT research–to triple its manufacturing capacity in the state, creating 1,000 jobs. In addition, state rebates will pay up to 60 percent of homeowners’ costs for installing photovoltaic panels.
“Thanks to places like MIT, with its Energy Initiative, Massachusetts is becoming a center of solar research,” he said. Noting an overall U.S. trend away from manufacturing jobs and toward information-based work, he said that “Clean energy is one knowledge-based technology that produces jobs across the spectrum”–everything from construction trade work to manufacturing, managerial, academic and research positions.
Patrick said that while some might find it odd to spend Earth Day talking about the building of a new industry, it really isn’t. “I hope everyone will help us build, right here in Massachusetts, a clean energy industry that saves the world,” he said, to a resounding standing ovation.
Arctic Melting Faster Than Even The Doomsday Scenarios
In yet another series of crappy news coming from the poles of this planet global warming is having a greater and faster impact on the Arctic than previously thought, according to a new study by the global conservation organization WWF (pdf).
The new report, called Arctic Climate Impact Science – An Update Since ACIA, represents the most wide-ranging reviews of arctic climate impact science since the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) was published in 2005.
The new study found that change was occurring in all arctic systems, impacting on the atmosphere and oceans, sea ice and ice sheets, snow and permafrost, as well as species and populations, food webs, ecosystems and human societies. In essence fucking up everything.
Melting of arctic sea ice and the Greenland Ice Sheet was found to be severely accelerated, now even prompting the expert scientists to discuss whether both may be close to their “tipping point” (the point where, because of climate change, natural systems may experience sudden, rapid and possibly irreversible change).
“The magnitude of the physical and ecological changes in the Arctic creates an unprecedented challenge for governments, the corporate sector, community leaders and conservationists to create the conditions under which arctic natural systems have the best chance to adapt,” said Dr Martin Sommerkorn, one of the report’s authors and Senior Climate Change Adviser at WWF International’s Arctic Program. “The debate can no longer focus only on creating protected areas and allowing arctic ecosystems to find their balance. At the same time, we need to simultaneously reduce the vulnerability of social and environmental systems of the Arctic by reducing threats from human activity and building ecosystem resilience — the ability of ecosystems to remain stable when under a lot of pressure.”
According to last year’s reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, if the entire Greenland Ice Sheet were to melt, sea levels would rise 7.3 metres, making its status a global concern. While it is currently impossible to accurately predict how much of the ice sheet will be melting, and over which time, the new report shows there has been a far greater loss of ice mass in the past few years, much more than had been predicted by scientific models.
Likewise, the loss of summer arctic sea ice has increased dramatically, with record lows reached in 2005 and — way more dramatic — in 2007. In September 2007, the sea ice shrank to 39 per cent below its 1979-2000 mean, the lowest since satellite monitoring began in 1979 and also the lowest for the entire 20th century based on monitoring from ships and aircraft.
“When you look in detail at the science behind the recent arctic changes it becomes painfully clear how our understanding of climate impacts lags behind the changes that we are already seeing in the Arctic,” said Sommerkorn. “This is extremely dangerous, as some of these arctic changes have the potential to substantially warm the Earth beyond what models currently forecast. That is because climate models don’t currently adequately incorporate important underlying drivers of the arctic changes we are already observing, such as the interaction between sea ice thickness and water temperature.”
The Arctic is not only one of the places on Earth most vulnerable to climate change, but also a place where vulnerability is of urgent global relevance. WWF calls for a two-pronged strategy to minimize the impacts of climate change. “We need to reduce global emissions of greenhouse gases to levels that will avoid the continued warming of the Arctic and the anticipated resulting disruption of the global climate system,” said Sommerkorn.
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