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Not so black and white on Kyoto

This BBC story on the French love affair with nuclear power makes the somewhat surprising point that even with 78% of its power generated by its 58 nuclear plants, France is not on pace to meet its 2008 greenhouse gas emissions reductions as mandated by the Kyoto Protocol. In fact, only the U.K. and Sweden among E.U. signatories are on target to meet the 8% reduction in emmissions by 2010.

This unsettling situation makes at least two things quite clear:

1. Transport (not fueled by nuclear power) must be responsible for a very large portion of greenhouse emissions;
2. the Europeans are in danger of their words speaking louder than their actions when it comes to meeting the reductions mandated by Kyoto.

It is no excuse for American inaction, but failure to meet these commitments may have the effect of undermining the case for the multilateral environmental mechanism while reinforcing the image of Europeans as aspirational rather than serious about meeting targets and timetables.    

That’s just crazy talk

On the CNN home page this morning, a headline quietly announced what scientists and environmentalists have been shrieking about for a while now: Experts: Earth getting warmer, people to blame. The article, reporting on the American Association for the Advancement of Science's annual meeting, quotes Tim Barnett of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography: "The debate over whether or not there is a global warming signal is now over, at least for rational people."

Rational, you say? I popped on over to Fox News to see how they were handling the story. Hmm, no mention of global warming amidst the Jacko reports on the home page. Let's see what a search on the term brings up. Ah, yes: there's the chilling report of "Manufacturers Stymied by Air Pollution Controls." And then, in "Kyoto Count-Up," we learn that Wednesday was the day the Kyoto Protocol -- aka the "global economic suicide pact" -- went into effect around the world, "but, fortunately, not in the U.S. and Australia."

It's good to find some level heads in these crazy times.

The future

Over on Worldchanging, Vinay Gupta asks: What will environmental policy in the 22nd century look like? His answers are pretty heady stuff.

Gale Polish

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Pension funds

If you were intrigued by this blurb in Daily Grist on CalPERS, check out the in-depth story by William Greider in The Nation on the increasing power of public pension funds to affect social and environmental change.

In the wake of Enron-style corporate scandals, in which public pension funds lost more than $300 billion, some of the leading funds have restyled themselves as more aggressive reformers. They are picking fights with Wall Street orthodoxy they long accepted, like the obsessive maximizing of short-term gains. More important, they are broadening their definition of fiduciary obligations to retirees by trying to enforce corporate responsibilities to serve society's long-term prospects. Instead of adhering passively to market dogma, the activist funds now regularly accuse corporate managements and major financial houses of negligently or willfully injuring the long-term interests of pension-fund investors, therefore injuring the economy and society, too. Pension-fund wealth is thus being mobilized as financial leverage to break up the narrow-minded thinking of finance capital and to confront the antisocial behavior of corporations.

Interesting stuff.

Conspiracy theories

In a piece discussing the import of today's kick-off of the Kyoto Protocol, Chris Mooney makes a point I also tried to make in my review of Crichton's book, and again in this post.

Those who remain in denial about the seriousness of global climate change must now defend a truly ludicrous position. They must argue that the rest of the world is suffering from a mass delusion, a fantasy so powerful that over a hundred nations have independently fallen for the same alarmist myth; and furthermore that the 35 developed nations facing binding commitments under Kyoto have voluntarily agreed to measures that would severely damage their economies all for nothing. When we hear someone like Senator James Inhofe speak of a climate change "hoax," it's pretty clear that he has a conspiracy theory along these lines in mind.

Except for the part about "severely damage their economies," which I think is far from certain, Yes. Crichton tries to portray climate skeptics as a brave band of level heads battling a wave of alarmism. But think about it. What are the chances that virtually the entire scientific establishment, along with hundreds of self-interested politicians, have been duped, and this group of (conservative) people in the U.S. has seen through the facade? I mean, sure, it's possible. As the skeptics are fond of saying, the scientific consensus has been proven wrong before.

Exactly

Sacramento County plans to join the green building revolution, but it's not necessarily a high-minded ethical decision.

It's about on dollars and cents. Specifically, how to stretch them farther.

Music to my ears.

Old Macdonald had a GPS unit

This little story in the Fresno Bee speaks volumes. It's about a program at wee West Hills College called "Farm of the Future" that teaches students how to use the latest high-tech farming equipment. These students are in hot demand and are hired straight out of the program, because farm tech is advancing faster than the abilities of typical farmers to keep up with it.

"The jobs are there," said Ted Sheely, who grows a wide range of crops on 8,000 acres near Huron. "We don't have enough qualified people to run the equipment we have." Increasingly, farmers are embracing new technology of the sort Velasquez is using because it brings greater efficiency to their operations. It can save money that years ago might have been spent needlessly on pesticides, fertilizer and water. "This technology doesn't cost; it pays," said Sheely, who loans equipment for students to use, including a $350,000 tractor that has auto steering and an on-board computer. The computer positions the tractor to micromanage applications of chemicals or other products without ripping out drip tape used for irrigation.

For now, the advanced technology is mostly used on the big farms that can afford it. But project out into the future a bit ...

Wave Hello

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