Vets and others speak out on climate legislation

Here's the promised video by VoteVets.org outlining the link between oil dependence and war, which John  Kerry put up on the Huffington Post blog and commented on.  Here's an outline of new climate and energy legislation introduced by Senators Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman to mirror the legislation passed by the House last June. And here's an open letter by a Grist blogger David Roberts to these Senators on what sounds like a sensible approach to getting this climate legislation passed.  Please let your Senators know what you think here.  I'll be gone next week visiting my extended family (yes, I bought offsets).  Let us know what you think of these pieces, and what you think we should be doing to fight climate change, and
Stay cool,
Bonney

Block the Dirty Air Act

President Obama last May proposed improving gas mileage standards for cars and decreasing their greenhouse gas emissions.  The EPA rule that would accomplish this is set to go into effect April 1, but Senator Lisa Murkowski from Alaska has proposed a bill that would block it.  The Senate could vote within days on her dirty air act.  Please click here to sign a petition urging your Senator to vote no on this act and all legislation that attempts to block or freeze enforcement of Clean Air Act limits on greenhouse gases, which contribute to climate change. According to Environment New Mexico, the EPA rule would save twice as much oil as we import from the Persian Gulf in a year and reduce global warming pollution by 900 million metric tons, the amount emitted by 194 coal-burning power plants.  Next week:  a video from vets urging passage of clean energy climate legislation.  Let me know your thoughts and
Stay cool,
Bonney

Alternatives to nuclear power for slowing climate change

Despite a big push for nuclear power in the US and elsewhere as an answer to the woes of climate change, there remain serious issues that make it a solution of last resort, unless and until these issues can be addressed.  The reason nuclear is brought up is that wind and solar, though very good potential sources of energy, have the problem of being intermittent, and nuclear power plants have almost continuous operation with no greenhouse gas emissions.  The current electric power system requires about 35-40% of the power, termed baseload, to be provided by a steadily available source of energy, mostly burning coal in the US.  This book and website, Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free, outlines how to reduce greenhouse gases and provide baseload without the use of nuclear energy.

The US can achieve large reductions in greenhouse gases, not to mention energy costs, from conservation measures.  Geothermal energy, from hot rock and water below the Earth's surface, is a source of steady power, has a long track record, doesn't generate greenhouse gases, and is being rapidly developed.  It's also becoming more economical with tax incentives and stimulus money.  Although geothermal plants have a high up-front cost, the cost of energy generated from them is less than for coal, as outlined in this Scientific American piece.  Other potential solutions to the problem of solar and wind being intermittent include using hydrogen fuel cells to store the energy these sources generate, and pumping water uphill when solar and wind are available and generating power by sending it downhill when they aren't.

Nuclear power still has all the issues that it had in the 1970's and early 1980's:  no long-term solution to the problem of waste, very large cost of building plants, and safety issues with operating the plants and  mining uranium.  Also, though nuclear plants don't generate CO2 during operation, mining and processing uranium with current methods does generate greenhouse gases.  Some sources point to fast neutron reactors, which potentially solve the problem of waste by producing more fuel from depleted fuel, as the wave of the future.  However this article points to serious problems with these reactors which have resulted in the closure of most of them since their introduction in the 1950's.

With the track record of geothermal, new methods of storing energy from solar and wind, conservation, and new sources of energy being developed, I think we should be very cautious about pursuing a technology which has the potential to release significant amounts of radioactivity for millenia.  What do you think?
Stay cool,
Bonney

Do We Need Nuclear Power to Reduce Climate Change?

In researching this question, I ran across an interesting website, ProCon.org.  Their goal is to "provide resources for critical thinking and to educate without bias. We do not express opinions on our research projects."  On this issue, at least, I think they've succeeded. Here's their piece, "Is expanding nuclear energy production necessary to reduce greenhouse gas emissions?" Let me know what you think, and next week, I'll let you know what I think!
Stay cool,
Bonney

Here's the comments I submitted to the Environmental Improvement Board regarding proposed regulation of greenhouse gases.  You can submit comments through the end of the hearing on Monday, or attend the hearing and present your comments in person.  See last week's blog post for details.

Re: Docket number EIB  08-19 (R)

I have read the proposed regulations and support the proposal to set a science based cap on greenhouse gas emissions at least 25% below 1990 levels by 2020. As a former Environment Department employee, I find the proposed regulations to be fair and enforceable. Setting these regulations will provide a more predictable environment for business than the current lack of regulation in which we are left to wonder what form regulation will take. As a scientist and writer studying climate change for the last year and a half, I've concluded, along with a large majority of scientists studying the issue, that climate change is one of the most severe environmental problems facing the species of planet Earth, including humans.

New Mexico has the chance to join California and Massachusetts in passing regulations that create a favorable environment for investment in renewable energy, spurring a green economic recovery, and to to have a large influence on what form Federal regulations will take. I encourage the Environmental Improvement Board to adopt these regulations. As reported by Ceres, a national network of investors and public interest groups, the world's largest investors released a statement in January 2010 calling on governments to adopt climate change policy that will create a stable investment environment. "Given that Copenhagen was a missed opportunity to create one fully functional international carbon market, it is more important than ever that individual governments implement regional and domestic policy change to stimulate the creation of a low carbon economy,” said Peter Dunsombe, chairman of the IIGCC, a network of European investors.

I call on the Environmental Improvement Board to adopt these regulations.

Speak Out for a Greenhouse Gas Cap in New Mexico

New Energy Economy, a Santa Fe-based nonprofit that sees New Mexico's unique opportunity to shape climate change policy in the US, has partnered with the NM Law Center, an nonprofit with a long history of legal action protecting New Mexico's environment and people, to petition the Environmental Improvement Board to reduce greenhouse gases in the state. We are ranked 2nd in the nation for solar potential and 12th for wind.  Investors are calling on governments to regulate greenhouse gases and energy efficiency to create a stable environment for low-carbon energy investments.  The EIB will hold a public hearing on Monday, March 1, 2010 beginning at 10 a.m. at the State Personnel Office Auditorium, Willie Ortiz Building, 2600 Cerrillos Rd. in Santa Fe on these proposed regulations (Note this is a CHANGE of location).  There are three ways you can make your voice heard:  Go to the public hearing and speak in favor of these regulations, which will apply to any source emitting more than 10,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases a year;  submit a written comment by the end of the hearing (see the fifth paragraph of this notice); or sign the New Energy Economy's petition in favor of the new regs.  There are currently no national caps on greenhouse gases, although federal regulations require sources emitting over 25,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases to report their emissions.  See this post on federal legislation.  We need to take every reasonable action on every possible front to reduce greenhouse gases in light of the seriousness of climate change.  Thanks for all your actions!  Share them here, and
Stay cool,
Bonney

Sustainable Cooking and Junk Mail Follow-up

If you haven't been to the actual Carbonless Copy blog, but have just been reading posts in your inbox, go there (www.carbonlesscopy.blogspot.com) to see a comment on last week's post on stopping junk mail.  A reader posted a link to the Direct Mail Association's free Mail Preference Service.  Following the directions there has cut down on her junk mail significantly.  Try it and let us know how it works for you! 

Brighter Planet, a group from Middlebury, Vermont that helps people mitigate their environmental footprint, recently published a guide to Mastering the Art of Sustainable Cooking.  Inspired by Julie Powell's book and the movie Julie and Julia, the guide shares information and recipes from hundreds of contributors to help us lighten our "foodprint." According to the guide, "The average American is responsible for about 28.5 tons of carbon dioxide emissions every year, of which 20 percent, or 6.1 tons, is related to food. That’s greater than the impact of all their driving and flying habits combined. This might be surprising, given that public discussions of carbon emissions focus heavily on transportation while discussions about the impacts of food are typically centered around non-climate issues. But what it means is that individually and collectively, there is huge opportunity to reduce our climate impact by changing how we eat."  Take a look, share by posting a comment, and
Stay cool,
Bonney

MailStopper Didn't

I promised an update on Tonic MailStopper, which I signed up for in May 2009. This is a service which claimed to stop up to 90% of your junk mail in 90 days. Unfortunately, I haven't noticed a dramatic decrease in the amount of junk mail I get. However, there are a couple of caveats. The biggest one was stated by the company itself when it sent customers an email in November '09: "We finally looked in the mirror and admitted to ourselves that we can’t change the junk mail industry." MailStopper has changed their name to Precycle and their service to a package of "two energy efficient light bulbs, a reusable bag and a junk mail reduction product that eliminates only what we can guarantee will be eliminated." There are also no recurring charges unless you move. Precycle costs $43 total.

The other caveats, at least with the old system, are that you had to go onto MailStopper's web site to identify some of the junk mail that you didn't want in order for them to stop it. They did stop some advertising mail automatically, and did most of the difficult work for you. I'm sure I could have done more to reduce junk mail by going into my account and requesting specific places not send me mail. Another caveat: we get a lot of solicitations for charitable donations, which, depending on how charitable you're feeling, you might or might not classify as junk mail. Again, I could reduce these by going into my account and specifying which ones I didn't want mail from. But I didn't. A final caveat: I didn't quantify how much junk mail I got before or after paying for the service, so I'm just going by my memory, and memories are far from perfect.

If you're so inclined, I encourage you to try Precycle, or 41 pounds, which charges $41 for 5 years, or ecocycle if you want to do it yourself for free. I'd be interested to know how well any of these work for you. As always, I'm also interested in your ideas and practices for reducing our contributions to global warming. Thanks, and
Stay cool,
Bonney