Environment Forum

A flying HIPPO, with ICE-T on the side

A HIPPO took off from a windswept airfield in Colorado today, as  ICE-T waited in a nearby hangar, getting ready for a summer trip to the Caribbean.

OK, OK, enough fun with acronyms. HIPPO and ICE-T are flying climate laboratories, one in a Gulfstream V jet, the other in a refurbished C-130 military cargo plane.

Unlike its animal namesake, HIPPO is actually a rather sleek aircraft, fitted with equipment and a crew of 10, that makes flights of  eight hours or more at a go, sampling the atmosphere around the Pacific Basin, from near the North Pole to just off the coast of Antarctica. HIPPO is actually a combination of two acronyms: HIAPER Pole-to-Pole Observations. HIAPER itself stands for High-performance Instrumented Airborne Platform for Environmental Research. Quite a mouthful.

Unlike most Gulfstream V’s — usually used as corporate jets — this one has no in-flight bar. (Roger Wakimoto, the director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, which manages the program along with the National Science Foundation, said the bar was one of the first things to go after the plane was delivered.)

HIPPO takes off steeply and then flies in a sawtooth pattern, rising to 28,000 feet and then dipping to just 1,000 feet above the water or land. The point of this roller-coaster flight is to figure out how climate-warming carbon dioxide and other trace gases is distributed, not just at Earth’s surface but up to the edge of the troposphere, the lowest layer of the atmosphere, where most weather occurs. Learn more about this project here.

By contrast, ICE-T is being equipped for summer in St. Croix, where it will be based for a series of flights out over the open Atlantic Ocean. Its mission is to examine the ice that forms in clouds, because more than half of all precipitation begins in the ice phase.

How ice forms and multiplies in clouds is poorly understood and ICE-T — Ice in Clouds Experiment – Tropics — is meant to help scientists learn more about it. That could in turn help with accurately modeling precipitation and predicting climate changes. Take a look here for more information.

from Gregg Easterbrook:

What we should be taxing: greenhouse gases

Bravely, international diplomats, United Nations officials and environmentalists are meeting in Cancun this week to demand that other people use less fossil fuel. Bravely they met in Copenhagen a year ago to make the same demand, after also bravely meeting in Bali, Montreal and similar resort locales in prior years.

I will skip the obvious point about the greenhouse gases emitted by the jets and limos that bring the participants to these annual confabs, where preaching-to-the-choir is the order of the day.

Most of what happens at the annual international conference on climate change has been decided on in advance, so the greenhouse emissions could be avoided by a tele-meeting. But then the delegates won’t get a paid trip to Cancun!

Last year, the majority of the world’s heads of state, including President Barack Obama, attended the climate change conference in Copenhagen, where they bravely made vague, nonbinding comments about how other people should use less fossil fuel.

Obama ended the conference by declaring the United States would make a nonbinding commitment to engage in future greenhouse gas negotiations -- exactly what the elder president George Bush was mocked for saying at the conclusion of the 1992 Earth Summit, in Rio, a place the delegates bravely went.

Nearly two decades after Rio, nothing has changed in the international legal status of greenhouse gases, which are all but unregulated; nothing has changed in the United States, which does not regulate greenhouse gases; and President Obama was even using 17-year-old meaningless boilerplate!

Making REDD work for illegal loggers

It took just 30 seconds to fell the tree. Hendri, 27, a skinny Indonesian from Central Kalimantan on Borneo island, skilfully wielded the chainsaw more than half his height. The result is a thunderous crash and a tree that is quickly cut into planks on the forest floor near by.

And the reward for this effort? About 125,000 rupiah, or roughly $12 per tree measuring 30 cm or more in diameter. Hendri and the three other members of this local gang of illegal loggers make about $45 a day (not including expenses and bribes) cutting down between 4 and 5 trees and slicing them into planks with a chainsaw, using no protective gear. They work for about 10 days at a stretch.

Their work is tough and highlights the challenge of finding alternative livelihoods in communities surrounding projects that aim to save large areas of forest in the fight against climate change.

Another member of the gang, Maulana, 40, explained he didn’t like the work but he had six children to feed. If given a choice, he said he’d switch to growing rubber or managing a small area of palm oil if given the seedlings and land. Just a hectare of palm oil would be enough to meet his needs. That was preferable than the dangerous work cutting down trees in the steaming, flooded peat swamp forest, he said.

Indonesia has emerged as one of the leading countries in a U.N.-backed scheme that hopes to reward developing nations with carbon credit payments in return for saving forests, particularly carbon-rich peatlands found in southern Borneo.

Called REDD, or reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation, the idea is to pay for reductions of greenhouse gases, such as the carbon dioxide that forests absorb to grow and release in large amounts when cut down or burned. The greater the amount of carbon prevented from being emitted, potentially the greater the rewards in a scheme that could eventually be worth $30 billion a year in annual trade in CO2 credits, the United Nations says.

In Central Kalimantan, there are a number of large REDD projects, including where Hendri and his workers were operating. But project developers know that their investments will only pay off if the loggers are found new jobs, such as rangers, guides for ecotourists or given assistance to set up their own cash crops, such as rubber, rattan or even quick growing timber.

from UK News:

Are you losing faith in climate science?

While attending a meeting of prominent climate sceptics during the U.N. Climate Conference in Copenhagen in December (an anti-COP15, if you will), I listened to each of the speakers put forward their theory on why conventional evidence on the primary causes of climate change should be dismissed as, for lack of a better phrase, complete hokum.

Among their denunciations of widely-accepted truths regarding global warming, greenhouse gases, melting glaciers and rising sea levels was the assertion that a change in attitude was afoot; the public may have been duped into believing the mainstream scientific assessment of climate change, but not for long.

There was something in the air, the sceptics said, and soon people would begin to question their trust in the majority view.

I’m no scientist and am in no position to comment on the validity of any of the evidence on show; as journalists we were there to make sure both sides of the argument were being heard. This group of climate outcasts were in every sense on the fringes of COP15, but after a series of controversies in recent weeks it seems they were right about one thing at least -- the public conviction about the threat of climate change is slipping.

Well, it is in Britain anyway. An Ipsos Mori poll of over 1,000 UK adults found that the proportion of people who believe climate change is definitely a reality dropped from 44% to 31% in the past year.

Meanwhile, 31% said the threat was exaggerated, up 50% on last year – worrying statistics for the government and charities trying to convince the public to change its behaviour and to accept higher priced energy and goods as a small price to pay for saving the planet.

Why the sudden drop off? The poll follows weeks of suggestions that mainstream climatologists have, in the past, manipulated data and that an influential study by the U.N.’s main climate science body contains inaccurate information.

Don’t you find this car sexy?

That’s what Nissan President and CEO Carlos Ghosn asked reporters in Los Angeles while presenting the Leaf, a pure electric car to be made for the masses and launched in late 2010. 

The hatchback to be manufactured in Tennessee starting in late 2012 is no nerdy eco-friendly car, that’s for sure. And the prototype certainly was fun to drive. Nissan set up a test course in the Dodger Stadium parking lot and even this cautious driver couldn’t help but race down the straightaway. No emissions, no tailpipe, no noise — but lots of speed, right away.

Ghosn says the Leaf goes from 0 to 60 miles per hour in less than 10 seconds, although it felt much faster than that. “This is not a golf cart,” he reminded us several times.

But he is nevertheless keen on a slow U.S. rollout because he wants to get the battery technology and consumer experience right. In the first two years, just 10,000 to 20,000 Leafs manufactured in Japan will make their way to the United States and the first will go to around 15 high-potential cities, from Seattle, down to the San Francisco Bay Area and San Diego, and over to North Carolina.

Los Angeles is likely to be an early market too and sources say Nissan is negotiating partnerships for the second largest U.S. city,  where we spend way too much time in our cars. The Leaf can go 100 miles or 160 kms on a single eight-hour charge — enough for most L.A. commutes. And in a place where tailpipe emissions account for 40 percent of greenhouse gases (versus 30 percent for the nation), a Leaf fleet could make a difference in Los Angeles.

So, what do you think? Don’t you find this car sexy?

Photo credit: Reuters/Fred Prouser (Nissan’s Ghosn stands in front of the all-electric Leaf)

Travel agent scraps “medieval pardons” for emissions

A travel agent is ditching an offer allowing holidaymakers to pay extra if they feel guilty about the greenhouse gases created by their flights, saying it’s like selling “medieval pardons”.

responsibletravel.com said it was dropping carbon offsets from its website, bucking an industry trend of recent years.

Ever more airlines and travel groups offer customers the option of paying a bit more to plant trees in Africa, for instance, or to help build a wind farm in India to soak up greenhouse gases equal to those emitted by their vacations.

“We believe that the travel industry’s priority must be to reduce carbon emissions, rather than to offset,” said Justin Francis, managing director of the British-based firm.

“Carbon offsets distract tourists from the need to reduce their emissions. They create a ‘medieval pardon’ for us to carry on behaving in the same way (or worse),” he said.

The company said: “In 2002 we were the first travel agent to offer carbon offsetting, in 2009 we believe we are one of the first to stop offering offsets to customers.”

The firm said it agreed with environmental group Friends of the Earth that offsets were a “dangerous distraction”.  “Ultimately we need to reduce our carbon emissions. We can do this by flying less – travelling by train or taking holidays closer to home for example, and by making carbon reductions in other areas of our lifestyles too, alongside travel,” it said.

Pakistanis set tree planting record: 1,800 each a day

If you feel proud about having planted a tree sometime to help protect the environment, you may have to think again.

Pakistan has apparently set a record for tree plantings, with volunteers planting about 1,800 mangroves each in a day in mud and temperatures of up to 37 Celsius, according to the WWF International conservation group. 

Maybe such competitions will catch on if a new U.N. climate treaty due to be agreed in Copenhagen in December includes measures to combat deforestation. Trees soak up greenhouse gases as they grow and release them when they burn or rot.

According to a WWF statement, 300 volunteers planted 541,176 young mangroves without any mechanical equipment in the Indus River Delta, about 150 km south east of Karachi. That beat the previous Guinness World Record of 447,874 trees in a day held by India, it says.

“We hope that tree planting competitions will become as popular as cricket matches,” Richard Garstang, head of WWF Pakistan Wetlands Programme, said in the statement. Mangroves provide homes for creatures such as shrimps and lobsters and help protect coasts from tsunamis.

Planting mangroves is labour intensive (you can’t cheat by simply throwing thousands of seeds into the air or quickly jabbing a sapling into the ground). The picture above left shows a mangrove being planted in Indonesia earlier this year.

Tree plantings have taken off in recent years — Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai (right, with the spade) won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, partly for leading a campaign that had planted 20 million trees in Africa.

New ‘gold rush’ buzz hits Germany over Sahara solar

A “gold-rush-like” buzz has spread across Germany in the last week over tentative plans to invest the staggering sum of 400 billion euros to harvest solar power in the Sahara for energy users across Europe and northern Africa. Even though European and Mediterranean Union leaders have been exploring and studying for several years the idea of using concentrated solar power (CSP), the Desertec proposition suddenly captivated the public’s attention a week ago when German reinsurer Munich Re announced it had invited blue chip German companies such as Deutsche Bank, Siemens and several major utilities to a July 13 meeting on the project. The 20 companies aim to sign a memorandum of understanding to found the Desertec Industrial Initiative that could be supplying 15 percent of Europe’s electricity in the decades ahead.

Germany’s deputy foreign minister, Guenter Gloser, has been the government’s point man for the project. I had the chance to talk to him about it.

Question: How did this project to turn the sun in the Sahara into electricity for Europe and north African countries get started? Guenter Gloser: About 15 months ago Germany and France proposed including the solar plan into the list of projects for the Union for the Mediterranean. There were institutions that had already done research and we thought: ‘Why don’t we use this sun belt where there is such an abundance of sunshine as a source of renewable energy?’ Together Germany, France and Egypt put forth this solar plan as one of the six projects for the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership and underscored the fact that it could benefit both sides. It was not an idea where just countries north of the Mediterranean will benefit but rather those countries south of it as well as across the EU would also benefit.

Question: What is the current status of the project? Gloser: We agreed to move forward with the project and want to go forward step-by-step towards its implementation. But obviously neither the EU nor the Arab League will be the principal players but rather private investors. Our task for this project is to create the political framework — for example with setting up of the feed-in tariffs, ensuring the infrastructure is built and ensuring that the renewable energy can be transported to Europe. The political framework can also make it possible to expedite the approvals process. But what is also very important is that the energy produced is also available for countries in the region. For example, Morocco can take advantage of its solar and wind conditions on the Atlantic coast to build solar power plants or wind energy parks to provide energy for its domestic market and to sell energy abroad as well. Even countries such as Algeria, which has fossil fuel reserves, could also use the sun belt for solar thermal power for some of their energy needs — and prolong their fossil fuel reserves.

Question: Is there not risk involved in such large-scale investment in a region with a potential for political instability? Gloser: It’s a cooperation that will contribute towards diversifying energy sources, geographically and in terms of energy sources. It’s a truly fascinating project because it’s a win-win for everyone. And the third winner will be the people and institutions that finance this project. Neither the EU nor the countries in the south are capable of financing this on their own. So the question is: can third-parties bringing financing be involved. Energy security is an important issue everywhere. There are energy sources we have today that at times have been somewhat at risk. There’s no contradiction in saying that it’s important to diversify a country’s energy source as well as diversifying the types of energy it receives. It’s not that there is no risk whatsoever but it’s important to keep in mind that there are also some risk factors for other sources of energy that we are now importing.

Question: What impact do you think a project like this could have in the Mediterranean Union? Gloser: I think the partnership approach that we have taken could well have a positive influence of stability for the countries taking part as well as the neighbouring nations. The EU has been enlarged and come closer together in the past decades but there hasn’t been as much of that among Arab countries. Perhaps it would be possible through certain projects, such as this solar energy project or water projects or transportation routes, to increase the cooperation among those countries.

Question: There have been fears expressed that Europe would be exploiting natural resources in Africa, raising fears of a new sort of ‘colonisation’. What would you say to those fears? Gloser: It is not in any way an issue of the north dominating the south. It is not only the north that is interested in acquiring renewable energy but rather other users are interested. And if that mutual need for energy leads to a project that satisfies all sides then that is in my view a good route to take. I don’t think there’s any justification for the notion of this being an ‘energy colonisation’ or anything like that at all. It’s a mutually beneficial project.”

Historic climate deal in Copenhagen: dream or reality?

French President Nicolas Sarkozy declares “nuclear is dead”; Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is taken to hospital suffering from “confetti inhalation” and “hug-related injuries” after they agree to a historic U.N. deal to curb greenhouse gases in Copenhagen.

At least that’s part of the wishful thinking behind a spoof December 19, 2009 edition of the International Herald Tribune (left) showing a beaming German Chancellor Angela Merkel flanked by Sarkozy (left) and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso above the headline “heads of state agree historic climate-saving deal”.

Among other headlines in the 8-page edition sponsored by environmental group Greenpeace: “Markets soar on news of Copenhagen climate deal”, “Exxon finally comes clean” (by abandoning oil and shifting to renewable energies), “Atmosphere named world heritage site”, “India turns its back on the carbon economy”, “Amazon forest a big winner in Denmark”.

The newspaper imagines that that the deal was successful after the European Union agreed at a summit (starting today in the real world) to contribute $50 billion a year to help developing nations combat climate change, matched by a pledge by U.S. President Barack Obama in December to give $60 billion.

Of course the signs so far are that the real life headlines will be less enthusiastic at the end of the December U.N. conference about a new deal to succeed the existing Kyoto Protocol: promises for cuts in greenhouse gases by rich nations are well short of the paper’s imaginary curbs to limit global warming to a maximum of 2 celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial times. And neither the European Union nor the United States are talking about so much cash.

The Kyoto Protocol fell well short of green groups’ expectations — to the right is a copy of the (real) Japan Times the day after the Kyoto Protocol was adopted in 1997 — below the main headline “Conference adopts Kyoto Protocol” is another article “Kyoto Convention’s success open to debate”.

Coal-promoting ringtones draw Sierra Club’s ire

West Virginians who want to show off their pride in the state’s coal industry can now do so via some catchy, coal-promoting ringtones put together by the West Virginia Coal Association.

Beware, however, that the ringtones have already drawn the ire of environmentalists.

The ringtones are jingles the West Virginia coal group has used for some time to promote the state’s vast coal resources (and presumably to offset the bad rap coal gets for producing about 30 percent of the nation’s greenhouse gases).

Below are some of the lyrics:

Coal is WestVirginia/ Coal is me and you/ Coal is West Virginia / We’ve got a job to do/ Coal is energy (coal is energy)/ We need energy (we need energy)/ Coal is West Virginia

And:

When we go down deep through the dark today/ We come up wth a light for America