News Forum Archives: February 2003
Solar Power Under Attack Once Again
by Peter Asmus
One of the few success stories to emerge from California’s ill-fated experiment with restructuring its power market is solar power. Over the last two years, installations of this clean non-polluting energy source have increased by 1,000 percent.
In poll after poll, solar energy consistently ranks as people’s first choice when they’re asked what fuel source they prefer to generate their electricity. Given concerns over national security and vulnerability of fossil fuel supplies, and the growing evidence confirming a link between fossil fuel burning and global climate change, increasing the nation’s reliance upon solar power has never made more sense.
Last year, utilities mounted a campaign to increase the cost and complexity of “net metering,” a policy pioneered in California that allows a owner of a solar energy system connected to the grid to barter with their utility. When the sun is shining, solar photovoltaics (PV) transform sunlight into electricity. If the owner of the solar system doesn’t need the power produced by solar panels, the electricity can be sent back to the grid under net metering. When the sun isn’t shining, the utility, in essence, returns the electricity back to the customer. The meter spins backwards and forwards until production and consumption is netted out on a monthly or annual basis.
Due to a last-minute grassroots lobbying effort by solar advocates and customers, proposed utility changes to net metering for large-scale solar systems were defeated in the closing days of the last legislative session. This year, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has proposed what amounts to a new tax on customer-owned solar systems that would increase the cost of this non-polluting electricity source by up to 40 percent.
If California’s powerful private utilities Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), Southern California Edison (SCE) and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) have their way, charges ranging from 2 to 5 cents/kWh will be added to each kilowatt hour produced by solar systems that, like energy efficiency measures, reduce the need to purchase electricity from other often more polluting and sometimes more often more expensive sources.
Why would the CPUC increase costs of solar power that would effectively wipe out a 40 percent subsidy granted to solar PV under other existing state programs?
Large industrial customers were recently authorized to retain electricity purchase contracts with outside parties even though small consumers are still required to continue buy overpriced and dirty long-term power supplies purchased by the State of California during the height of the energy crisis in 2001. In exchange for the right to buy cheap and dirty power, the CPUC will require these large customers to pay an “exit fee” or tax to help pay their fair share of the state’s investment in long-term fossil fuel supply.
PG&E, SCE, and SDG&E would now like to also charge individual customers who install a solar electric system on their facility the same (or higher!) charge as they levy on large industrial customers who entirely leave the system. This proposed charge is fundamentally unfair for several reasons:
Individuals, companies and government facilities that install solar systems still buy most of their power from utilities. Therefore they pay the same overall higher rates to pay off state investment in power supplies as all other utility customers.
Customer-owned solar power provides public benefits by delivering non-polluting electricity during peak demand periods, when the dirtiest electric generators often come on line to avoid blackouts. Large customers who entirely leave the system offer no comparable benefit.
The proposed utility “solar tax” directly contradicts existing state policies designed to encourage expanded use of on-site solar power. On top of that, implementing the new solar tax will create administrative costs for utilities that will likely supersede the miniscule amounts of money collected from solar customer/generators.
CPUC Commissioner Loretta Lynch has an alternative proposal that would moves in a better direction than the initial proposed CPUC policy. Her proposal would exempt solar customers with net metering arrangements from “exit fees.” Though an improvement, this proposal still falls short of a sane way to maintain momentum on a power source ideally suited to California’s sunny climate.
All solar customers connected to the grid should be exempt from exit fees. Does anyone propose to tax people who reduce their reliance upon grid power by being more energy efficient? Of course not! In fact, the customers are rewarded for that beneficial behavior with financial incentives. Solar customers who use all of the solar energy their PV panels can crank out should not face stiff financial penalties either because they are reducing peak demand on the grid, too.
Governor Davis signed a new law that would double the amount of renewable energy generated in California over the next decade or so. This law, known as a Renewable Portfolio Standard, is allegedly among the primary accomplishments of the Davis administration in responding to the energy challenges still facing California.
Isn’t it time we had some clear and compelling leadership from the top on down the line on renewable energy sources? If the CPUC’s majority proposal is adopted, California will be pulling the rug out from under solar power, the one electricity source that can bring “power to the people” while helping the economy and the environment.
Peter Asmus has covered energy issues for 15 years. He is author of Reinventing Electric Utilities: Competition, Citizen Action and Clean Power and Reaping The Wind: How Mechanical Wizards, Visionaries and Profiteers Helped Shape Our Energy Future, both published by Island Press.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)
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Road Warriors
A travel club provides a greener alternative to the AAA
by Michelle Nijhuis
Grist Magazine
11 Feb 2003
It’s not easy to knock AAA. The venerable organization has 45 million members who count on it for trip insurance, travel advice, and, most of all, emergency services. It’s no wonder that many members have sworn lifetime loyalty to Triple A: Rescuing drivers marooned on dark, lonely highways can do wonders for membership renewal rates.
But is there a seedier side to this respected organization? Environmental and smart-growth activists say AAA’s small team of lobbyists uses the group’s outsized membership and down-home image to promote an agenda that is ecologically irresponsible.
In recent years, AAA spokespeople have criticized open-space measures and opposed U.S. EPA restrictions on smog, soot, and tailpipe emissions. According to a 2001 article in OnEarth magazine by Michael A. Rivlin, the AAA even bashed the 1990 Clean Air Act, saying the law served to “threaten the personal mobility of millions of Americans.”
The group is also a member of the auto industry-dominated American Highway Users Alliance, a powerful pro-pavement lobby. Although AAA spokesperson Mantill Williams says his group doesn’t support all AHUA positions, critics argue that the AAA’s credibility often helps the highway alliance get what it wants.
Last year, the alliance, with the initial help of the Southern California AAA affiliate, crusaded (unsuccessfully, as it turned out) against the state’s crackdown on carbon dioxide emissions from passenger cars and light trucks. The AAA affiliate in Washington state enthusiastically backed Referendum 51, a highway-dominated transportation-funding measure defeated by voters in the November election.
“Everyone loves the AAA, because it gets them out of jams,” says Barbara McCann, director of information and research for Smart Growth America. “What isn’t as well known is that AAA represents a very narrow viewpoint.”
So far, the criticism hasn’t made much of a dent; without AAA assistance, after all, stranded drivers would really be stranded. But now, the nation’s favorite auto club is facing something even more dangerous than bad press: competition.
Getting Better All the Time
Enter Mitch Rofsky and Todd Silberman. Rofsky and Silberman, who grew up together in Columbus, Ohio, and were once part of the same Cub Scout troop, are both seasoned entrepreneurs — and committed environmentalists.
In 1979, Silberman co-founded Lifeco, a $1.5 billion travel agency that he sold to American Express in the early 1990s. Rofsky, a former attorney for Ralph Nader’s Public Citizen group, left the nonprofit world to become one of the nation’s most successful green entrepreneurs: He was president of the Working Assets Mutual Funds, which later created the well-known long-distance telephone company and credit card service. Rofsky also founded the Massachusetts-based American Consumer Insurance Agency, a socially responsible insurance company.
In the mid-1990s, some environmental activists told Rofsky about their frequent run-ins with AAA lobbyists, and mentioned that an alternative travel club might find a following among environmentalists. Rofsky called up his childhood buddy Silberman, who was living in Portland, Ore., running a company called Elephant’s Trunk Travel. Rofsky not only got some encouraging advice about opportunities in the travel industry; he also found an enthusiastic business partner. The pair merged their insurance and travel businesses to form a Portland-based company called TripleE, later renamed Better World Travel Club. They soon acquired an Internet database of more than 50,000 vacation homes and bought and merged several Oregon travel agencies.
Last May, Rofsky and Silberman started selling memberships in the Better World Travelers Club to family and friends. The following month, the club officially opened for business, and it now has about 20 employees and 5,000 members.
Like AAA, Better World offers emergency assistance, trip insurance, and travel advice. Road America, a network of about 50,000 local towing companies, provides emergency services for the new club; the network successfully responded to its first call from a Better World member last summer. Members can also call Better World to get AAA-style road-trip advice (staffers encourage members to use electronic maps rather than the paper versions), and the company’s travel consultants can make domestic and international plane, hotel, and rental car reservations.
Unlike AAA, though, Better World offers its clients travel service with a conscience. The feel-good perks of membership might sound familiar to anyone who’s signed up for Working Assets Long Distance — though Better World members don’t get any ice cream. Better World gives 1 percent of its annual revenues to environmental causes and currently donates $11 to its “carbon offset fund” each time a club member makes a plane reservation. Money from this fund is now helping to replace outdated boilers in the Portland public schools, and Rofsky says it will eventually go toward environmental cleanup efforts in members’ destinations: “If people are flying to Colorado to go skiing, we’ll find a group in Colorado to donate to.” Through discounts and promotions, Better World also encourages its members to rent hybrid vehicles, stay in environmentally responsible hotels, and sign up for eco-tours.
Jonathan Budner, a green-building consultant in Portland, joined Better World less than a month after it opened for business. Though he was “perfectly happy” with AAA’s services, he says, he had read about AAA’s questionable environmental record and was eager to switch. Budner’s wife, Heather Helming, an AAA member “since she got her driver’s license,” was a tougher sell; only when she learned that Better World used an established network of emergency-service providers did she agree to sign up. So far, Budner and Helming have used Better World to make travel plans and plane reservations, and both are pleased with the club’s services. They say they’d probably opt for hybrid vehicle rentals and green hotels even without the Better World discounts, but “it’s nice to have a travel club that endorses those values,” says Budner.
Yet at its core, critics say, Better World is still about internal combustion. “We get asked if people should really be traveling,” says Rofsky. “But I think it’s progressive to travel. The worst thing in the world would be for people to never leave home. We’re trying to help them travel as lightly on the Earth as they possibly can.”
Cool Travelers
Rofsky hopes Better World’s travel services will work the same magic for his company as they have for AAA. “In a lot of ways, we want to be just like them,” he acknowledges. Yet at the same time, Better World Travelers Club is pointedly criticizing its 100-year-old competitor. “We’re the cooler, greener alternative to AAA,” says the company brochure. “Do you want to affiliate yourself with those who are Antiquated and Actively Anti-Environment? Or do you want to Travel Cool!?”
“Yeah, they’re okay,” sighs AAA spokesperson Williams when I ask him about Better World Travelers Club. But, he says, the new company is “trying to create a false dichotomy — the idea that you have to choose between roads and [mass] transit. … But it’s not all transit all the time, and it’s not all roads all the time. We’re for a balanced policy.” AAA’s lobbyists, he says, only try to make sure that all polluters, not just motorists, do their part to clean up the air.
Rofsky and Silberman are betting that the AAA’s “balanced policy” is starting to rub some of its members the wrong way — that a substantial number of people want a travel club that isn’t in cahoots with anti-environmental lobbies. “I believe that the marketplace works, that it gives consumers what they want,” says Rofsky. “We need to be persuading consumers that business can do a lot more for them.”
AAA isn’t going to be put out of business anytime soon, but Rofsky has big dreams. “I say, it took AAA 80 years to get to 20 million members,” he says. “Let’s see where we are in 80 years.”
Michelle Nijhuis lives just outside Paonia, Colo. (pop. 1,500), on a high and dry mesa.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)
Florida Town Opts for Dark Sky Lighting
HARMONY, Florida, February 18, 2003 (ENS) – The town of Harmony has become the largest private community in the U.S. to adopt anti-light pollution policies.
Harmony is installing special light fixtures on all streets and public parks that will help curb light pollution.
“Excessive urban lighting isn’t just a nuisance for those of us who still enjoy gazing at the stars in the night sky,” said Greg Golgowski, conservation director of the Florida development that is now taking root within 11,000 acres of pristine land in Central Florida’s Osceola County. “It also has grave environmental consequences for animals.”
Light pollution from parking lots, street lamps and other sources is devastating to certain bird species, disorienting them during nighttime migrations. A lack of darkness at night also has been linked to chronic fatigue and depression in humans.
These are some of the reasons why Harmony is dedicated to the notion of Dark Sky lighting. That means that lighting in all public areas will be directed downward. Energy efficient low wattage bulbs will help reduce the amount of carbon dioxide that escapes into the air. Dark Sky friendly street lamps and other outdoor lighting fixtures will be installed throughout Harmony.
While Harmony’s commitment to Dark Sky lighting will cost a bit more than if the town had opted for typical lighting fixtures, the community’s stewards believe this feature will result in higher real estate values for homeowners.
“We could have settled on using cheaper lighting,” Golgowski said. “But what we’re building at Harmony is our own home town, a place where you can sit on your front porch and point out the Big Dipper in the night sky to your children. We want to do our part to make sure this development showcases the natural world, which is already full of wonder and beauty.”
When completed, Harmony will be home to some 18,000 people. It is designed to be among the nation’s most environmentally intelligent communities, with 70 percent of its lands set aside for wilderness. The community’s two 500 acre lakes will not have homes on their shores and will not allow powered boats.
All homes will be Energy Star rated, and neighborhoods will be a mix of affordable, smaller homes and larger, more expensive homes.
The town will also be home to The Harmony Institute, a nonprofit organization that promotes human health and well being through interactions with nature and animals. The Institute’s Campus Advisory Board (HICAB) advises the community about animal and environmental issues, including its lighting.
Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2003. All Rights Reserved.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)
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Our bodies, our landfills?
You are what you ate, breathed, drank and more
By Francesca Lyman
MSNBC Contributor
Feb. 5 - Two recent studies cast dramatic light on the extent to which Americans are absorbing toxic chemicals in their bodies as part of everyday life. They present a striking picture of Americans riddled with low levels of chemicals, the vestiges of eating, drinking, breathing and touching the synthetic products of the industrial world. Given how common these chemicals are, can personal actions and better choices reduce one’s level of exposure in a toxic world?
Charlotte Brody used to think so. For 20 years, she ate organic produce and followed all the usual recommendations to reduce chemical exposure, from using non-toxic household cleaning detergents to avoiding pesticides in her home and garden.
Joking that she washed her bathtub in vinegar so much that her family said it smelled like a salad, she adds, “I’m the one hand-picking individual weeds from my garden rather than using chemical sprays, and going that extra mile to get my organic milk in a glass bottle.”
With more than 70,000 chemicals in use in the United States and 2,000 new compounds being introduced every year, according to government figures, the average American is exposed to a cocktail of chemicals from various sources.
Brody used to think her efforts helped limit her exposure, but after volunteering to take part in a study measuring toxic chemicals in her body, she was shocked to find that she still had some 85 toxic chemicals in her blood and urine.
“I’m proof that a healthy lifestyle doesn’t shield you,” says Brody.
A CHEMICAL COCKTAIL
Brody and eight other volunteers were tested for the presence of 210 chemicals, commonly found in consumer products and industrial pollutants, by the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York and two non profit groups, the Environmental Working Group and Commonweal.
The study claims to be “the most comprehensive” survey to date of the multitude of contaminants found in humans.
Tests on blood and urine detected an average of 91 industrial compounds, pollutants and other chemicals in the volunteers, with a total of 167 chemicals found across the entire group. The researchers chose subjects who did not work with chemicals in their jobs or live in industrial areas.
This small Mt. Sinai study and a much more comprehensive survey done by the Centers for Disease Control, also released in January, shed new understanding on the “body burden” of toxic chemicals we all carry inside. The results illustrate a side effect of modern life in which everything from carpets to cosmetics are bathed in toxins.
RESULTS OF CDC STUDY
The CDC tests measured some 116 harmful chemicals, including lead, mercury and other heavy metals, chlorinated solvents, insecticides and other pesticides, PCBs, and plasticizing agents called phthalates, to name but a few.
The agency noted some public health successes, such as a decline in lead levels and in cotinine, the byproduct of tobacco smoke. But the researchers also announced some troubling findings, including:
- Children have twice the levels of certain pesticides in their blood as adults
- Children have higher levels of cotinine than adults
- Children have higher levels of certain chemicals used in soft plastic toys
- Adolescents have high levels of phthalates from personal care products
- Mexican-Americans have three times the levels of the banned pesticide DDT in their systems as other Americans
CAUSE FOR CONCERN?
Environmentalists interpreted the test results as greater evidence of the need for better regulation of industrial chemicals, while some in the chemical industry saw them as a sign that better regulations and detection methods are working well.
“Just because chemicals are found present in the body doesn’t mean there’s cause for concern, but only that an internal metabolic process has occurred,” said Jennifer Biancaniello, a spokesperson for the American Chemical Council, a trade association of chemical manufacturers. “CDC hasn’t come out and said there’s cause for health concern.”
While the CDC researchers did not comment on the possible health consequences, they did note that there are not enough studies available to adequately answer health questions regarding most of the chemicals found.
The report’s immediate value, CDC officials said, was to show for the first time the extent of Americans’ exposure to a range of ubiquitous chemicals.
With data on real-world “body burdens,” researchers can then monitor the same populations for health effects and begin to connect the dots between exposures and health outcomes, said Jim Pirkle, deputy director for Science at the CDC’s environmental health laboratory.
“The important thing is to look at this as a work in progress,” said Dr. David Fleming, the deputy director of the CDC. “We’re getting information we never had before. Better decisions can be made about how to protect people from environmental hazards.”
MAKING PERSONAL CHOICES
According to the Mt. Sinai study, chemicals make their way into our bodies through pollution, food additives, pesticide residues, a range of consumer products from paints and plastics, and a wide array of building materials.
Given the ubiquitous nature of these chemicals, can individual actions to reduce one’s exposure make a difference?
“People should stop smoking and stop exposing children to secondhand smoke,” said the CDC’s Pirkle, who also cited the need to avoid lead in paint and other products. “But there’s no way you can get rid of everything,” he adds.
Kris Thayer, a scientist with the Environmental Working Group and one of their study’s authors, points to new evidence showing that making simple dietary changes can reduce one’s exposure. She cites a recent study that found feeding children organic food reduced their exposures to pesticides by 6 to 9 times and another study that found cutting consumption of fish decreased blood levels of methyl mercury, a potent neurotoxin.
But many exposures to toxic chemicals in daily life are unavoidable, she says. She hopes body testing will spur governments and corporate leaders to reduce toxic emissions and even ban some products, as Sweden recently did when it found traces of fire retardant turning up in women’s breast milk.
Rather than be paralyzed by our toxic exposure, we ought to use the results of these studies to promote better policies and product lines, said Jeannie Rizzo, director of the Breast Cancer Fund.
“I would have liked CDC to call for more policy changes and make a more urgent call for research,” said Rizzo. “We’re walking around with these chemicals in us but with a process (for protecting us) that doesn’t have to be this slow.”
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Francesca Lyman is an environmental and travel journalist and author of “Inside the Dzanga-Sangha Rain Forest” (Workman, 1998).
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)
Po`ouli is Three Birds Away from Extinction
HONOLULU, Hawaii, February 3, 2003 (ENS) – In an attempt to save the vanishing po’ouli, a Hawaiian songbird, biologists will attempt to catch the only three remaining birds that are known to exist for a captive breeding project.
Today, a team of biologists flew into Hanawi Natural Area Reserve to begin a desperate attempt to save the rarest Hawaiian forest bird. After years of work to reduce the threats to the species in the wild, and an effort last year to translocate a female into the last remaining male’s territory, state and federal biologists agree bringing the birds into captivity offers the best remaining opportunity to establish a breeding pair.
“Saving the po`ouli is without a doubt a tremendous challenge,” said Paul Henson, field supervisor for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (USFWS) Pacific islands fish and wildlife office. “Our hopes and prayers go with this team into some of the roughest terrain in Hawaii. We have no guarantees we can save the species, but we have to try.”
The stocky little bird with a black mask is part of the Hawaiian honeycreeper family, but so unique it occupies its own genus. It is the only Hawaiian forest bird to rely on native tree snails as its food.
Despite extensive searches, only three birds – a male and two females – have been found in recent years, and all in separate home ranges.
Six eight day trips into the forest have been scheduled during February and March. All of the birds have been captured at least once in the past. The biologists will first try to recapture the female they moved last year.
After sighting the bird, they will put up a mist net – a fine mesh, almost invisible net – in the vicinity to capture the bird. If captured, the bird will be put into a padded box so that it cannot injure itself. An avian veterinarian will be on each trip to evaluate the bird’s health and stress levels.
“The protocol we will be following was developed to a large extent during the translocation project last year by the Maui Forest Bird Recovery Project staff,” explained Michael Buck, administrator of Hawaii’s Division of Forestry and Wildlife. “Although that effort did not result in a breeding pair, it was incredibly important for the knowledge it gave us regarding how a po’ouli may react to captivity. Thankfully, the female captured last year seemed to take it in stride.”
If the bird is judged to be healthy and not overly stressed, team members will then hike with the bird to the nearest helicopter landing zone, where it will be picked up and flown with the avian veterinarian to the Maui Bird Conservation Center in Olinda. The facility – like the Keauhou Bird Conservation Center on the Big Island – is operated by the Zoological Society of San Diego.
“Establishing a breeding pair of po`ouli may be the most challenging task we’ve ever attempted,” said Alan Lieberman, avian conservation coordinator for the Zoological Society. “We have successfully bred several Hawaiian bird species, including the ‘alala, puaiohi, and palila, and even reintroduced them into the wild, but to start off with only three birds, all of which are at least six years old, just increases the difficulties.”
“We had hope these birds could be recovered in the wild,” Lieberman continued. “But now we’re running out of time, and we’re committed to management measures to prevent their extinction.”
The elusive po’ouli was not discovered by modern scientists until 1973, when a group of University of Hawaii students conducting research on the east slope of Haleakala sighted a bird they had never seen before. It was named po’ouli, which means black head in Hawaiian, by Mary Kawena Puku’i, a renowned authority on Hawaiian culture. It has a quiet song “like dripping water” according to biologists, making it much more difficult to hear than more vocal species such as the Maui parrotbill.
“Sadly, fossil records tell us that we already have lost 82 Hawaiian bird species, including 26 since Europeans first visited the islands,” Henson said. “Our challenge is to make every effort possible to save this unique piece of Hawaiian heritage. I believe the effort we are now beginning gives us the best remaining opportunity to do so.”
Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2003. All Rights Reserved.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)
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Speech addresses need for humans to protect environment
The Daily Vanguard
February 06, 2003
by Manisha Ganesh
Respected geneticist and professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia, Dr. David Suzuki addressed a capacity crowd at Portland State University, presenting “The Nature Challenge – Setting the Real Bottom Line for Communities.”
Sponsored by PSU, the Portland Office of Sustainable Development and Nike, the hall was filled with students, visitors and nature enthusiasts from Portland and the entire state of Oregon.
City Commissioner Dan Saltzman welcomed the audience and thanked the sponsors in helping make sustainable development a reality.
The director of the city’s sustainable practices, Susan Anderson, expressed enthusiasm for the turnout and the growing number of people interested in sustainable practices. She described the day as being a special turning point for her organization, as it marked a change from merely providing technical assistance to interested organizations and communities to providing educational assistance as well.
Lee Weinstein, Nike’s representative, introduced Suzuki with a mention of his numerous awards in his work of creating an awareness of the importance of sustainable practices.
Suzuki expressed his pleasure being back in Portland and was motivated by the large turnout for the evening. Describing the Portland community as being well aware of the importance of intelligent living, he praised the community for the work it had already achieved as the local community served as the connector of basic human survival.
Describing the ratification of the Kyoto Agreement as a significant and proud moment for him and his fellow Canadians, he said that the real issue for him was about the future and legacy for the future and the children.
Suzuki expressed displeasure at society’s teaching that the economy is all-important.
“To me, as a biologist, its confusing that the economy comes before the biosphere,” Suzuki said. “We live in the biosphere just as the economy does.”
He elaborated on North America’s penchant for holding the economy as the highest priority and measuring progress by the extent to which the economy as grown.
“Will anyone ever ask how much is enough?” he asked.
Suzuki said the human race is collectively taking more than it has to give from the environment.
“We live in a world that is connected and every act carries consequences,” said Suzuki amid applause from the audience.
He offered a way to right this act.
“A city is a biological desert,” he said. “It has none of the biodiversity of the rural life, and therefore our reference point has diminished by living in the cities. We desperately need our elders to tell us how it was to allow us to focus on a new reference point.”
Concluding his hour-and-a-half-long speech, Suzuki described the global economy as the greatest destroyer.
“We are predicated on the notion that the greatest thing to hit the planet is us,” he said. “That is why we measure the economy as a success point. Sometime the economy and the biosphere is going to crash and test the limits and we are going to be in trouble.”
Suzuki then opened the floor for discussion. He was asked how he proposed to bring back the connection between human life and nature without losing the efficiency of urban life.
He said that he was encouraged by the statistics that show parents are taking children to zoos more than to soccer games.
“Schools need programs to send children out to experience nature. We need to be smarter about our close living,” he said.
Suzuki was also asked for his thoughts on the U.S. media’s current obsession with the space program.
“I have never been a fan of the amount of money spent on space,” he said. “I have never understood the idea of humans in space, the enormous problems to counter that goal and why they can’t do it mechanically. Lets put our efforts where are priorities are, and that’s good old Mother Earth.”
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Climate science shows need for Kyoto
by David Suzuki
December 6, 2002
With all the discussion in the media about the minutia of the Kyoto Protocol, it’s easy to forget why we’re taking steps to slow climate change in the first place. In recent weeks, as politicians have debated the Protocol in Parliament, several new studies have been published that are poignant reminders of why we have to start tackling this problem now.
First, a study of snowfall on Canada’s highest peak, Mount Logan, has greatly extended our understanding of temperature changes in the atmosphere. One of the longstanding complaints of climate change skeptics has been that our atmospheric data only goes back some 60 years – a very short length of time in terms of tracking climate trends. But a new report published in the science journal Nature provides data dating back more than three centuries.
At the Mount Logan site, increased atmospheric temperatures correlate with higher snowfall levels. So researchers took ice core samples deep enough to provide 300 years of snowfall data. They found that between 1700 and 1850 there was little change in snowfall patterns. Then, around 1850, snowfalls began to increase – signaling elevated atmospheric temperatures. By 2000, snowfall levels were 15 times greater – providing strong evidence that atmospheric temperatures are on the rise, just like ground-level temperatures.
Another study, one with disturbing implications for Canada, was conducted by NASA and published in the Geophysical Research Letters. It reported that the “permanent” ice cap covering the Arctic Ocean in the Far North is disappearing faster than expected. In fact, an area the size of Alberta is melting every decade. Researchers say that at this rate, it will be gone by the end of the century, if not sooner. Temperatures are still increasing and, as the ice melts, the snow that reflects sunlight back into space is replaced by dark water, which absorbs yet more heat and further increases the warming trend. The loss of ice means less habitat for many animals. Some, like the polar bear, could disappear altogether.
A final study, also in Nature, looked not at how the climate is changing, but at what this change will mean to our forests. Trees absorb carbon from the atmosphere and store it as wood. For this reason, forests have been dubbed carbon “sinks.” Some have argued that Canada should simply be allowed to grow more trees as a way to slow global warming and meet the Kyoto Protocol. But the new four-year study by 50 international scientists led by Natural Resources Canada shows that pollutants released by power plants and vehicles don’t just cause climate change – they also stunt tree growth.
The researchers pumped two common gases created when fossil fuels are burned – carbon dioxide and ozone – over stands of aspen trees at a huge outdoor facility in Wisconsin. As expected, increased carbon dioxide led to increased tree growth. However, when ozone was added to the mixture, the opposite occurred. The ozone caused stress to the trees, making them more vulnerable to pests and pathogens. These pests included the poplar leaf rust – which increased three fold in a carbon dioxide and ozone-enriched atmosphere, tent caterpillars – which increased by up to 31 per cent, and aphids – whose infestations became more severe in enhanced atmospheres. Considering the damage that pests are already doing to areas like the interior forests of British Columbia, the thought of enhanced pestilence is especially disturbing.
It also means we can’t count on trees to soak up all that carbon we’re spewing out through the tailpipes of our cars, the chimneys of our homes and the smoke stacks of power plants. We can’t count on any carbon sinks to behave consistently when the rest of the world is changing. The only reliable way to slow global warming is by reducing emissions and Kyoto is a good way to start.
This column reprinted from the Science Matters series by David Suzuki, an award-winning scientist, environmentalist and broadcaster. He is well known to millions as the host of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s popular science television series, The Nature of Things.
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