One world, one problem

By Bill McKibben

Mainly, the battlefront has kept widening over the decades, as we come to understand just how many threats there are: that species are going extinct, that carcinogens are spreading through the air and water, that genetically modified crops might contaminate their natural cousins. By the early part of this decade, researchers estimated there were 30,000 local environmental groups in this country, saving and protecting and doing all kinds of noble work.

In the past two or three years, however, something new and different has begun to happen: A consensus is emerging that one fight, and one fight only, looms at the center of our environmental efforts. That's the battle against global warming, which has begun to serve as the organizing principle for green America.

Foundations are diverting money from other programs; the heads of the big Washington-based environmental groups have agreed that this will be their priority for the foreseeable future. Not because free-flowing rivers or threatened grizzlies or toxic waste have grown less important, but because people have begun to realize that we could win every other battle and it would be meaningless if we lost the fight against climate change.

This shift -- the steady morphing of the environmental movement into the climate movement -- stems in large part from the latest round of scientific reports. In the past two years, the top scientists at work on climate change have shifted from worried to very nearly panicked, because the data shows we have less time than we thought, and more danger. NASA's James Hansen, America's foremost climatologist, defied a White House gag order last year and said we had 10 years to reverse the flow of carbon into the atmosphere or else we would live on a ``totally different planet.'' In particular, Hansen had been studying the ever-more-likely collapse of the Greenland ice sheet, which holds enough water to raise the earth's seas 25 feet.

But you could reach the same conclusions by looking at the increase in drought, or the spread of desertification, or rising storm intensity, or the release of methane gas from warming Siberian bogs -- every system we study is showing deep stress from the 1 degree Fahrenheit increase in temperature we've already caused. No one wants to see what will happen if we raise the mercury another five degrees, which is the consensus forecast for this century unless we get to work very quickly.

And it's not just the scientists -- a team of British economists reported last month, after a year and a half of close study, that the potential economic cost of climate change exceeded World War I, World War II and the Great Depression combined.

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Pocket change to save the world

PG&E sells offsets for carbon-neutral living
David R. Baker, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 19, 2006

The fight against global warming has created its own odd market, one in which companies sell their ability to remove greenhouse gases from the air.

Some of these companies plant trees to absorb carbon dioxide. Others create systems to capture methane produced by dairy cows. Some build windmills to generate electricity that otherwise would come from power plants burning coal or natural gas.

Their buyers? Companies or individuals who want to offset the amount of carbon dioxide they pump into the atmosphere as part of their everyday lives.

While similar markets exist overseas, it's a relatively new phenomenon in the United States.

Here, the market still doesn't have many participants and is noticeably short on rules. As public concern over climate change rises, however, the market is expected to grow.

That market got one of its biggest boosts last week when Pacific Gas and Electric Co. jumped in.

The utility, California's largest, announced a program that will let its customers calculate and offset the amount of carbon dioxide their power supply produces. The average residential customer who volunteers for the program will spend an estimated $4.31 each month, with the exact figure based on how much electricity and natural gas the person uses. Businesses that buy power from PG&E also can participate.

Executives at San Francisco's PG&E expect about 4 percent of their customers to sign up in the next three years, generating about $20 million. That money will be spent restoring or conserving California forests.

Nothing compels people to join the program, which is scheduled to begin in spring. Like all companies participating in this new market, PG&E is betting on the altruism of its customers.

"All of us Californians will be getting something in return that's very tangible," said Wendy Pulling, PG&E's director of environmental policy. "The projects we'll be investing in will be here in California, and they'll be protecting and preserving our forests."

Americans have, sometimes, been willing to spend more to protect the environment. But it's a checkered history. For example, during California's disastrous experiment with electricity deregulation in the late 1990s, some companies pitched themselves as offering clean, renewable power. Most people ignored them, sticking with their traditional utilities.

Then again, Americans in general and Californians in particular have rushed to buy hybrid cars such as the Toyota Prius, even though they cost more.

"The average consumer wants to be part of the solution. They want it to be easy, and they want it to be clear," said Tom Arnold. His Menlo Park company, TerraPass, gives people a way to calculate how much carbon dioxide they pump into the environment. They can then pay money, through TerraPass, to fund projects that will offset those greenhouse gases.

In the two years since it formed, TerraPass has signed up 26,000 customers and funded 11 projects involving wind power, energy efficiency and the capture of methane from cows. The small company, privately held, has not yet turned a profit, although it hopes to do so in the first quarter of 2007.

"We like to say that, in theory, we're for-profit," Arnold said.

Other groups offering similar services are nonprofits. A recent study of the nascent market found about 30 businesses or nonprofit groups offering to make consumers "carbon neutral."

The study also found that the quality of those offerings varied widely. Some companies sell offsets that, in reality, may do little to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, said Adam Markham, whose environmental organization commissioned the study.

"There's no seal of approval. There are no agreed standards in this emerging market," said Markham, executive director of Clean Air-Cool Planet, a nonprofit organization that pushes for action on climate change. "You're going on faith with some of them. There's a little element of 'buyer beware.' "

Dirty doings

PG&E and other companies are letting Californians pay to offset the greenhouse gases they produce in their daily lives. For example, a ton of carbon dioxide is produced when you:

-- Fly 2,000 miles.
-- Drive 1,350 miles in a large SUV.
-- Drive 1,900 miles in a mid-size car.
-- Run an average U.S. household for 60 days.


Sources: Clean Air-Cool Planet, Trexler Climate + Energy Services Inc.
E-mail David R. Baker at dbaker@sfchronicle.com.

The Power of Star Power

Leonardo DiCaprio's name seems to be popping up all over the climate change arena these days. Not only is he making politically charged movies about the diamond trade in Africa, the actor has been serving on the board of Directors of Global Green USA making his voice heard when it comes to climate change issues.

His website contains valuable information and links addressing a number of environmental concerns including fresh water, biodiversity, oceans and the Bush record.
Check it out at http://www.leonardodicaprio.org/

Most recently, he's posted a question on http://answers.yahoo.com/


What are some simple steps or creative ideas that people can take at home and work to combat global warming?

Global warming is not only one of the most threatening environmental problems, but one of the greatest challenges facing all of humanity. Danger signs are surfacing worldwide as temperatures increase (the last ten years have been the hottest years ever recorded causing glaciers and the polar ice caps to melt, coastal areas to flood and storms to become more severe). If left unchecked, global warming will continue to have a profound impact on our planet that will eventually cause catastrophic results. Fortunately, there are things each of us can do. Buildings -- including our homes -- are major contributors to greenhouse gases they’re responsible for up to 40% of all energy and resource use and approximately 1/3 of greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming.

So go, check out the answers and post your own!

A little more about AB 32

This is an article from a few weeks ago, but it provides some easy to understand explanations of the new California Global Warming Solutions Act:

State emission credit may be hot commodity

By Michael Gardner

November 20, 2006

SACRAMENTO – Like gold and pork bellies, California's carbon dioxide emissions credits may someday emerge as the big thing on commodity markets.

Brokers who specialize in the art of the deal are closely following developments here as California steers toward a controversial, yet common, market-based course to reduce pollution many scientists link to global warming.

Under the proposal, California would reward low-polluting companies with emissions credits that they can then sell on an open market to industries that cannot readily curb greenhouse gas discharges. Companies are already forming a line, said Josh Margolis, a manager with Cantor Fitzgerald Brokerage.

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Researcher says plankton vital to climate change

TIM JEANES: They may be only tiny, but the combined effects of plankton removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, while also helping create clouds, has a huge impact on world climate. For these and other reasons, Professor Gustaaf Hallegraeff believes plankton deserves much greater attention.

GUSTAAF HALLEGRAEFF: Been at it now for 30 years, and I've become more and more convinced that these organisms are at least as important, and probably even more important than the big plants and the big animals that we big humans on the land are so familiar with.

TIM JEANES: Professor Hallegraeff is the Professor of Aquatic Botany at the University of Tasmania, and the author of the new book Plankton - A Critical Creation. He says dramatic changes are happening in the world's oceans, particular in those off southern Australia.

GUSTAAF HALLEGRAEFF: These are the drivers of global climate in this time of considerable environmental change. We need to know who these organisms are, how they are going to respond, and if you ignore these organisms, we do so at our own peril.

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Planktos Contributes 55 million trees

Planktos has pledged 55 million trees to the United Nations Environment Program's Billion Tree Campaign.

Under the Plant for the Planet: Billion Tree Campaign, people, communities, business and industry, civil society organizations and governments will be encouraged to enter tree planting pledges on this website with the objective of planting at least one billion trees worldwide during 2007.

Through its work with Klimafa (Climate Tree in Hungarian) and the Haida Climate Project, Planktos has pledged to not only plant, but ensure the protection and survival of the trees.

The 55 million trees planted by Planktos represents the lions share of all USA commitments to the program (57 million), seen at

http://www.unep.org/billiontreecampaign/search/search_process.asp

And this is nearly half of the entire worldwide commitment (114 million) so far pledged.

Global warming will stifle oceans: scientists

By Jeremy Lovell

LONDON (Reuters) - Global warming will stifle life-giving microscopic plants that live in the surface layer of the oceans, cutting marine food production and accelerating climate change, according to a study published on Wednesday.

Phytoplankton are not only the foundation of the marine food chain, but every day they take more than 100 million metric tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, scientists from Oregon State University, NASA and four other institutions said.

But as global warming heats the surface layer of the ocean it becomes lighter and therefore separated from the cooler depths from which the phytoplankton get many of their nutrients.
This cuts their numbers, not only reducing the food in the oceans but slashing the amount of carbon dioxide they take from the air and therefore accelerating the climate warming process.

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