The Bay Area Air Quality Management District voted 15 to 1 to implement a CO2 tax of 4.4 cents per metric ton of emissions.  The tax would effect 2500 businesses ranging from refineries to grocery stores.  While this is the first Carbon Tax in the US, 4.4 cents per metric ton of CO2 represents just little more 1/2 of 1% of the actual cost of carbon offsets on the Chicago Climate Exchange where offsets closed today at $7.35 per metric ton.

For more details:  http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/21/MNDN10QD6O.DTL

Over the last few months i’ve read a great number of articles on global warming, carbon offsets and carbon trading.  One of the most unbelieveable facts that i’ve found, is the marketing efforts of the Flat Earth Society, AKA Right Wing America to deny that global warming is occuring.  Well if not for the long history of this groups opposition to any scientific fact that doesn’t meet Right Wing dogma, this campaign would be shocking.  Today, the only thing shocking is the number of so called “educated” Americans who base their scientific opinions on what they are told by Rush Limbaugh, a man who says “nature has an infinite ability to cleanse itself”, and other equally stupid statements on the environment.

The Anti-Science crowd takes pride in denying facts such as: global temperatures are rising, carbon dioxide levels are rising, the seas are rising and for most of the last 40 years denying that smoking causes cancer.  Yes these IQ monsters spent years denying a link between cigarettes and cancer with the pithy, yet stupid comment: “it’s only statistical evidence”. When most have clearly never studied statistics, let alone understands the science.

Yes these are the same people who 500 years ago begged Columbus to stay home lest he fall off the edge of the planet.  The people who killed others for saying the Earth revolves around the sun.  The ones who decided that swans were created from barnacles on ships and that hauled John Scopes into court for teaching evolution.  Yes these are folks who feel their religious beliefs trump science and the rest of us need to yield to their beliefs.  These so called religious people can’t believe that their god would create a universe based on the laws of physics and create life that evolves and adapts over long periods of time.  I guess their god doesn’t have the rational thinking needed to creat such wonders?  Maybe they’re just narrow thinkers, followers of uninformed leaders.

When it comes to global warming, it’s certainly reasonable to debate how much man has contributed to this problem and what can be done to fight it, but to deny the fact that it exists and is getting worse is to uninformed or dishonest.  Will all those who disbelieve, please swap land with those living near or below sea level?  Now that’s a solution to global warming — LOL.

I’m proud to announce a new venture, A Little Green Book, llc. a book publishing company.  A Little Green Book is planned as a series of pocket size paperbacks on a variety of green topics.  Our first two books, authored by Pink Hat and myself are available now at Lulu.com.  We are currently printing our first edition, which will be more widely available by mid April.  A Little Green Book is committed to bring green bloggers to print and the mainstream book business.

My book, is A Little Green Book of Environmental Quotes and Comments, presents about 120 famous quotes on nature and the environment, with comments from me.  This is not a scholarly work, but more of a conscienceness raising tool; a way for people to think about the environment using the quotes and comments to fuel discussion.  I hope those who buy it will enjoy it.

Pink Hat’s book is A Little Green Book of Organic Gardening Tips, which puts together about 125 tips for gardening with a … greener thumb?  This book presents a different tip on everypage, on topics ranging from planting location, feeding and maintaining your plants.  As the spring attempts to make it’s presence felt, grab a copy of this gardening book and let us know what you think.

 Please join us in celebrating our move into publishing and thanks for your ongoing support.

That old Hollywood line, actually a misquote, has been used for comic relief more than a few times since the Treasure of the Sierra.  And while you may have hoped this would be another, that’s about all the humor………….
 The reason i bring up badges, is because of the CO2 offset badge there on the upper right of this website. It represents that this web site is running carbon neutral by virtue of a carbon offset provided by 4Offsets.com.  4Offsets.com helps individual and businesses offset their CO2 emissions as a way to speed adoption of renewable.  These offsets are based on CO2 offset commodity contracts, that have been ‘retired’ from circulation.  The contracts were awarded to people, projects and companies for efforts that eliminate emissions of greenhouse gases.  The contracts, that might be awarded to a wind farm or for planting and maintaining a forest, are sold to companies who have either a legal or self-imposed madate to reduce their CO2 production.  The theory and the reality, is that this market helps to increase the cashflow on green investments.  As the demand for these offsets increase and the price increases, the amount of money an offset will deliver to green project will increase the investment’s rate of return.  The next part is that the higher rate of return will attract more investment and therefore more wind, solar, and trees, at an increasingly fast pace.

I wrote about these carbon offsets and their use by Aspen Skiing and the concern, expressed by Aspen Ski’s environmental officer, these offsets really are helping speed change.  Following some research, I’ve concluded that while the offset market is less effective at incentivizing green energy, than $100 a barrel oil, it is a sound theory.  Any additional return on investment helps to increase it’s attractiveness.  This is especially true for new, expensive technologies such as solar.  If the market for these offsets increase, causing the price of offsets to generally rise, it will further fuel the march to a sustainable world.

The result of my research was to decide that i should focus my business efforts on fighting the greenhouse crisis and that carbon dioxide offsets are the best option available to ‘kick start’ US society’s shift away from hydrocarbon fuels.  I would like to announce that i have joined with a couple of friends to create a CO2 offset business at www.4Offsets.com.  We currently are running our beta testing, so please let us know what you think.

The USA finally relented and stopped blocking an agreement on negotiating a new climate change treaty.  The frustration of the conference with US intransigence, finally came out when Papua New Guinea delegate, Kevin Conrad, challeged the US: “If for some reason you are not willing to lead, leave it to the rest of us. Please, get out of the way.” A statement directed at James Connaughton who indicated earlier in the week that the US was leading and other countries “…requires others to fall in line and follow”.  Following an outbreak of boos and catcalls by the international delegates at the US,  ambassador Paula Dobriansky relented. 

Ambassador Dobriansky told the conference “We came here to Bali because we want to go forward as part of a new framework.  We believe we have a shared vision and we want to move that forward. We want a success here in Bali. We will go forward and join consensus.”

Do you want to get $2000 in Free Government Money Thru Dec. 2006?

Yes this is a trick - have to buy $6675 worth of solar panels for your home and have them installed.  You are then eligible to receive a 30% tax credit for your installing solar electricity in your home, up to a total credit of $2000.

 here are the details

http://www.energy.gov/taxbreaks.htm

A Homeowner in Beach Haven Terrace, NJ is facing a number of legal problems from his neighbors and local government over a 12 foot diameter wind generator mounted on a 32 foot high post in his backyard.  This generator manufactured by Southwest Windpower  is reported to have cost Mike Mercurio, the homeowner, green ethusaist and seller of alternative power generation for local homes, $15,000 to generate 25% of his power needs, the remaining power comes from 56 solar panels on his roof, about $50,000.  The main problem cited by his neighbors is the noise from the windmill.  According to the lawsuit, the sound, given off by the mill exceeds that of 50 decibels, considered the level of noise generated by light traffic on the street.  The lawsuit also complains of strobing (flashing) shadows caused by the mills spinning blades.

These are the sort of issues that make solar a more viable solution for urban and suburban area.  But with Mercurios system, likely costing $65,000, is it financialy benefitial?  His gas and electric bills were “as high as $340″ a month, or about $4100 a year.  Paying 8% for using a home equity loan, you would be paying $300 in monthly interest for the loan, which would result in you saving nearly $500 in each year if you never payoff the loan.  As long as the system lasted 15 years without maintenance expenses, it kinda works, but to pay off the loan within the 15 years. This likely pushes the monthly cost of the loan $700

When you look at an all solar system, that has a 25+ year lifetime, it brings the loan servicing to about $550 a month for a 10 kw solar solution, about 50% more than the cost of power in Beach Haven Terrace, New Jersey

As far as i can tell there are about 0 people (ok sure some lefties, hippies, survivalists but they have more of an agenda)  in the US that have any intention or ability to sacrifice their lifestyles to save the plant from global warming.  Why should they, given the masses who refuse to acknowledge the problem, let alone sacrifice to solve it? Why should the individual give up their things, their travel, their lifestyle to be 1 billionth, or less, of the solution?  I can’t see why, it flies in the face of both consumerism and self interest.  Why give up everything, if ice caps will still melt?

So, how do we solve the problem?  Well it’s really quite simple a combination of law and the marketplace. The coordination of laws, tax policy and the marketplace can encourage consumers to make the switch to green technologies as the financial sacrifice to do so decreases.

The leading example of how this can work is the German approach to moving the country toward solar power.  The German government requires that power transmission companies connect alternative power sources as a priority and pay a minimum rate per Kilowatt hour, locked in for a period of 20 years.  This guarantee, has encouraged german entreprenuers and homeowners to install over 1,150 megawatts of solar photovoltaic generating capacity in 2006.  It is this sort of methodology that can jump start the move to more expensive, less carbon intensive technologies.  This early adoption will, as with all technological products, will increase the demand and bring more capacity and ultimately the lower prices.  These lower prices will further speed the switch to renewable energy sources.

So can we save the world without sacrifice?  In reality, we will have to sacrifice some cash, but frankly with the skyrocketing price of oil, the marketplace is reducing the cost of us changing the infrastructure that powers our lifestyle. If you consider the modern, consumer lifestyle, only airplanes and ships seem unable to move without traditional fuels or in the case of ships nuclear power plants.  All other aspects, including cars, can be powered by electricity or carry sufficient hydrogen to be pratical.  Once everything is electric, the game has changed. In an electric world, we only need to replace carbon generating power, with carbon free electricity and that can be achieved thru non-polluting renewable sources, solar, wind, waves, etc. or carbon based fuels if the industry can truly sequester carbon.  In an ideal world, we could take CO₂, use bacteria to break off the O₂ and expell carbon fibre, that can be used to build the consumer products that generate the pollution of our the modern lifestyle.

So can we save the planet without sacrifice? Without individual sacrifice, yes, but as a society, we need to make laws, tax policies and grants, a a shared sacrifice to help rapidly change the infrastructure of our modern world to be sustainable.

Funny how environment and business interacts.  In the case of the earth, until recently, business always ruled over the “natural world”.  As long as business wanted to dump their waste in the rivers, they could.  As long as someone owned the land (was rich) or had an army (was powerful) they could do as they pleased.  As cities came to be and health became an issue; think of a plague, caused by filthy water and sewage in the streets.  The was the beginnings of concern health and the local environmental. 

Only in the last 60 years has humanity had the knowledge and tools to measure, test and track the impact of human activity. Today the focus on the environment has moved from local to global.  The environmental movement truely took off in the 1960s and since then a worldwide battle between the forces of green and the “anything for money” crowd: Laissez Faire Capitalists/Conservatives rages on. While some people who consider themselves L.F. Capitalist and Conservatives are surely environmentalists, the general belief of these folks is that the richest and strongest in society should act without restrictions, especially on financial and real estate issues.

These people, who have preached that “evidence” proves capitalism is superior, have simultaneously bristled at science that shows that this sort of behavior jeopardizes the environment and humanity.  In fact when such evidence is presented, they deny the science.  They deny the science since it threatens to curb the “freedom” to destroy the environment and put humanity at risk.

How does the battle of Science vs Conservatives get fought? In the US and Canada, it originally took the form of finding “Experts” who initially denied that there was any sort of problem.  As problems became more evident, they argued they couldn’t be proven to endager people.  When science had finally won the day and convinced the world there was a problem, that it hurt people, the fake experts would then explain that changes can’t solve the problem anyways.

More concretely, this has led to reports written by US government scientists being edited by political appointies in order to remove content that puts at risk the conservative agenda of letting business do anything to the environment if it makes someone rich.  The best metaphore here is from Orwell’s 1984, where the Ministry of Truth corrects previous statements and facts to square with the realities (read that politics) of the day. It’s hard to believe that the environment is debated politically, just because it might cost a few dollars more to live in cleaner, more environmentally stable world.

Fact: there is more CO2 in the atmosphere in the last 150 years than all but several periods in earth’s geology.

Fact: As industrial growth and use of hydrocarbon fuels grew, CO2 grew

Fact: The average temperature of earth has increased since human industrialization

Generally accepted as Fact: CO2, Methane increases in atmosphere are responsible for the increase heat.

Theory - reducing or eliminating CO2 from human activity will slow or reverse heating.

I’m sitting here in Essex County Ontario, the most southern county in Canada and i’m freezing my ass off.  It’s no surprise that Windsor (across the river from Detroit) can be dangerously cold in winter, even in the midst of global warming.  Eventhough polar ice caps melt and Caribbean waters are overheating, most weather patterns remain intact, if not exactly the same as in the past.

The biggest problem about global warming, that makes it hard to take these warnings seriously, is our view from the “warming pot of soup”.  If the climate suddenly (within days/weeks) changed, say temperatures rising 5C, it would be obvious.  But since we’re living in the environment and changes are gradual, say over years, that much like the pot of soup coming to a boil, it’s hard to see the evidence as evidence.

Solving the problem is simple, reduce the production of greenhouse gases, reduce greenhouse gases currently in the atmosphere.  It’s simple to do, but not very practical in a modern world generating these gases in power production.  The world much shift to a renewable, low impact, no waste energy source to power our world.  Only solar is a passive, renewable, low impact alternative to hydro carbon energy (not accounting for production materials).  Wind and wave power, while renewable and clean does impact the air and current flow, around the collection turbines. The same can be said for thermal collection methods, only photogeneration of electricity promise no impact to the environment.

Well just a few thoughts, in the dead of winter