Dear commenters trapped by my spam catcher

My Askimet spam catcher harvested 36 possible spam comments over the past 24 hours.

Since so many of you placed in spamagtory have asked the same questions and comments, I thought I would answer them with one post.

First, thank you for saying how much you love the posts.

Second, the Timberati blog uses the Atahualpa theme for WordPress by Bytesforall.

Third, the colors used on the blog can be learned by getting the color eyedropper add-on for Firefox; I, frankly, have no idea what the colors are.

Lastly, there are subscription buttons at the upper right and on the right side of the blog, as well as the RSS feed button in the URL bar.

Yours in blogging,

Norm

Escaping the climate energy trap

Nearly half the world uses wood to cook and heat with, contributing to deforestation. (Image credit: Freefoto.com)

CFACT hosts tour of energy poor village of La Libertad at Cancun climate talks

(Cancun, Mexico) Few things divide rich from poor like access to affordable energy.  Today, it’s estimated that 1 out of 5 people have never flicked a light switch while nearly half the world cooks with solid fuel, such as wood or dung.  On Wednesday, December 8, CFACT transported COP16 delegates, press and observers to the Mexican village of La Libertad, where people cook, heat and live without electricity.  La Libertad presents a compelling picture of the plight of the energy poor.

“As COP16 considers the future of the world’s energy policy, it is vital that the voices of those suffering energy poverty are heard,” said CFACT President David Rothbard.

“Today’s visit was both sobering and inspiring,” Rothbard said.  “We and our guests saw the harsh realities of what life is like without basic necessities, such as electricity, which we take for granted.  Yet among the people of La Libertad we saw remarkable joyfulness and hope in the midst of poverty – especially among the many school children – this humbled us.  CFACT believes these children deserve every opportunity that our children enjoy, including affordable, abundant electricity and all the benefits that brings.  We must not set energy policy in a vacuum and create obstacles to the progress of countless communities like La Libertad.”

Access to affordable energy has led to a cleaner, greener environment and a rebound of natural habitats and wildlife throughout the developed world.  Efficient agriculture and distribution, both of which require abundant energy, permit developed nations to devote less land to food production, while minimizing the need to forage for wood for cooking and heating.

Billions know a different reality.  Energy poverty means a life without the nutrition, health care, refrigeration, jobs, information and education the rest of us take for granted.  Without electricity, foraging for food and fuel leads to deforestation and pressures wildlife, while an estimated 1-2 million people die every year from respiratory diseases linked to the burning of wood, charcoal, dung and other solid fuels.

CFACT has worked for years with impoverished people around the world including Valle Verde and other villages in the Yucatan peninsula and witnessed the consequences of energy poverty first hand.

“Global warming campaigners are here in Cancun proposing treaty provisions that would frustrate recovery for developed economies while doing nothing to alter the climate,” said Craig Rucker, CFACT’s Executive Director.  “It is vital we also turn our attention to those in the developing world whom too many are callously willing to trap in energy poverty permanently.  Wealthy activists advocating policies that hold the poor down makes for a sorry spectacle indeed.  Payoffs to developing countries to do without efficient energy will benefit elites in those countries while leaving the needy behind.  This is a disaster for both the energy poor and the working people who pay the bills.”

International aid should focus on helping developing nations construct an efficient energy infrastructure including electricity generation and transmission.  Rucker said, “For villages like La Libertad if there is energy, there is hope.”

Continue reading “Escaping the climate energy trap”

Climate security, no. Job security, yes we Cancún.

As we know equivocally from the website of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), the cabaret in Cancún, Mexico (29 November to 10 December 2010),

encompasses the sixteenth Conference of the Parties (COP) and the sixth Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP), as well as the thirty-third sessions of both the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) and the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA), and the fifteenth session of the AWG-KP and thirteenth session of the AWG-LCA. To discuss future commitments for industrialized countries under the Kyoto Protocol, the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP) established a working group in December 2005 called the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP). In Copenhagen, at its fifth session, the CMP requested the AWG-KP to deliver the results of its work for adoption by CMP 6 in Cancun.

Christopher Monckton writes this about the work occurring at the “sixteenth Conference of the Parties (COP) and the sixth Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP), as well as the thirty-third sessions of both the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) and the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA), and the fifteenth session of the AWG-KP and thirteenth session of the AWG-LCA. To discuss future commitments for industrialized countries under the Kyoto Protocol, the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP) established a working group in December 2005 called the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP).”:

A multitude of long, inspissate, obfuscatory, obnubilating, obscurantist draft agreements are circulated, always a day or two late for delegates to find out what they have actually agreed to. The daily timetables for the various “working” sessions of the conference are never available until breakfast-time on the day, allowing no scope for planning the day. By these means, most delegates are kept permanently and completely in the dark.Here is a typical paragraph from one of these leaden documents:

“The SBSTA welcomed the report (FCCC/SBSTA/2010/INF.10) on the second workshop of the work programme on revising the “Guidelines for the preparation of national communications by Parties included in Annex I to the Convention Part I: UNFCCC reporting guidelines on annual inventories” (hereinafter referred to as the UNFCCC Annex I reporting guidelines), held in Bonn, Germany, from 3 to 4 November 2010, which was organized by the secretariat as requested by the SBSTA at its thirtieth session.”

Try to read several hundred pages of this stuff. It simply isn’t possible. And that, of course, is the idea. This is the Mushroom-Growers’ Management Method writ large: keep them in the dark and feed them plenty of sh*t.

He concludes that the purpose of such sessions is  job creation–for bureaucrats, “No one has yet managed to discover just how much these hundreds of new supranational climate-change bureaucracies are costing us. That is an international state secret – until Wikileaks gets hold of the figures, of course.”

In the video below, delegates unwind after day of  “long, inspissate, obfuscatory, obnubilating, obscurantist draft agreements”:

African poverty is falling…much faster than you think

Back in April, in Happy 40th Earth Day Everyone! I noted the progress we had made worldwide. Specifically, I wrote that the percentage of the world population living on less than $1 a day (in PPP-adjusted 2000 dollars) had dropped [as in, didn’t go up] from 26.80% to 5.40%

One commenter, Hapa, did not see why we should acknowledge the drop:

“poverty”
$1.25/day was adopted by world bank as absolute extreme poverty indicator in 2008. obviously extreme poverty has gone down in real terms, although not real fast in terms of absolute population, and it’s good and i don’t debate it.

but you don’t stop there. you use the wrong measure, the most extreme measure, and you shout victory for a relative improvement when the real number of people living in sick mud hasn’t gone down anywhere near how it could have.

some people, dishonest people, would blame the slow progress on environmentalist backstabbing, when it’s mostly caused by corruption in rich (for wage arbitrage) and poor (for politics) countries alike. what do YOU say.

I agreed that corruption (though not by richer countries) in the poor countries probably held them back. Now, with United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDG) deadline approaching, comes an analysis by two economists. They say,

[I]t is still widely believed that this growth is primarily driven by oil and natural resource prices, and that it is confined to well-connected elites in geographically advantaged countries. The popular image is that the poor majority in all African nations and many African nations as a whole are stuck in “poverty traps” created by unfortunate geography and calamitous history. For example, the prospects of meeting first Millennium Development Goal of “halving, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people earning an income less than $1 a day” seem to appear bleak for Africa; the UN writes in its latest Millennium Development Report that “little progress was made in reducing extreme poverty in sub-Saharan Africa” (UNDP 2008)…[Yet, their analysis shows, the] speed at which Africa has reduced poverty since 1995 puts it on track to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of halving poverty relative to 1990 by 2015 on time or, at worst, a couple of years late.

Below is the analysis by Maxim Pinkovskiy Xavier Sala-i-Martin of Voxeu.org.

================================================================================================================================Continue reading “African poverty is falling…much faster than you think”

The Week’s Environmental Story Roundup

Stories of environmental interest this week:

International and National:

Monsanto appeals judge’s order to uproot genetically modified sugar beets; Obama administration reverses offshore oil-exploration plans; 4200 sq miles reclosed in gulf of Mexico following find of oil tainted shrimp; Walking to stores ‘damages planet more than going by car’; Waste-pickers demand first dibs on rubbish; When life gives you hydrocarbons, make energy, Kyoto CO2 limits not to be extended this year.

California News:

HSU professor scales redwoods for clues to global warming; Kettleman City toxic waste facility fined for violations; Jerry Brown’s Hobson’s choice; new study criticizes high-speed rail effort.

Monsanto appeals judge’s order to uproot genetically modified sugar beets

Monsanto has appealed Tuesday’s ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey S. White, in San Francisco to rip out 256 acres of genetically modified sugar beets in Oregon and Arizona. The sugar beets had been be used for the 2012 crop seed production. The planting of sugar beet seedlings, or stecklings, that was authorized in September under permits issued by USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS).

“With due respect, we believe the court’s action overlooked the factual evidence presented that no harm would be caused by these plantings,  and is plainly inconsistent with the established law as recently announced by the U.S. Supreme Court,” said David Snively, general counsel for Monsanto. “We intend to seek an immediate stay of this ruling and appeal to the Court of Appeals.”

Roundup Ready sugar beets have been planted in North America for the past four years.  After careful review, USDA issued permits for this additional seed production in accordance with the June, 2010 Supreme Court ruling that clearly authorizes such actions.  The District Court’s decision would impose unnecessary costs on the seed producers when there has been no demonstrated harm to plaintiffs or risk to the environment associated with the seed production in the multiple years that the crop has been successfully planted and harvested.

More than 1 million acres of Roundup Ready sugar beet varieties have been planted in 10 U.S. states and in two Canadian provinces.  In North America, roughly 95 percent of the 2010 sugar beet acreage was safely planted with Roundup Ready varieties. Sugar beet growers have confirmed that Roundup Ready sugar beets reduce impacts on the environment and make their operations more efficient and productive.  Alternative technologies require more applications of pesticides, with greater impacts on the environment and lower productivity on farms.

Using herbicide resistant crops reduces tillage, which reduces soil erosion and nutrient erosion.

Source(s):

Obama administration reverses offshore oil-exploration plans

Citing the lessons of the BP oil spill, the Obama administration has decided not to allow  oil and gas exploration in the eastern Gulf of Mexico or off the eastern Gulf of Mexico and portions of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts as part of their next five-year drilling plan.

“We are adjusting our strategy in areas where there are no active leases,” the Washington Post quotes Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar as telling reporters in a phone call, adding that the administration has decided “not expand to new areas at this time” and instead “focus and expand our critical resources on areas that are currently active” when it comes to oil and gas drilling.

The Obama Administration had already walked back some of the GW Bush Administration’s oil and gas exploration plans, as explained in this backgrounder.

Source(s):

4200 sq miles reclosed in gulf of Mexico following find of oil tainted shrimp

Citing an “abundance of caution,” federal officials shut down more than 4,213 square miles of Gulf of Mexico federal waters off Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama to royal red shrimpingafter a commercial shrimper, having hauled in his catch of the deep water shrimp, discovered tar balls in his net. Fishing for royal red shrimp is conducted by pulling fishing nets across the bottom of the ocean floor. The tar balls found in the catch may have been entrained in the net as it was dragged along the seafloor.

“We are taking this situation seriously. This fishery is the only trawl fishery that operates at the deep depths where the tar balls were found and we have not received reports of any other gear or fishery interactions with tar balls.” said Roy Crabtree, assistant NOAA administrator for NOAA’s Fisheries Service southeast region. “Our primary concerns are public safety and ensuring the integrity of the Gulf’s seafood supply.

Other fishing at shallower depths in this area has not turned up any tar balls and is thus not impacted by this closure. The fisherman who reported this catch had trawled for brown shrimp in shallow waters in a different portion of the area to be closed earlier in the day without seeing tar balls.

Source(s):

Walking to stores ‘damages planet more than going by car’

What will Ed Begley Jr. make of this one? The man bites dog aspect of the story comes from the greater amount of fuel needed to grow our food today. Chris Goodall, author of How to Live a Low-Carbon Life, did the math and says “Driving a typical UK car for 3 miles [4.8km] adds about 0.9 kg [2lb] of CO2 to the atmosphere. If you walked instead, it would use about 180 calories. You’d need about 100g of beef to replace those calories, resulting in 3.6kg of emissions, or four times as much as driving.” Mr Goodall is no Chicago school economist; he is a Green Party parliamentary candidate for Oxford West & Abingdon.

Yes! Finally, mathematical proof that being a couch potato is good for the environment.

Source(s):

At climate summit in Cancún, waste-pickers demand first dibs on rubbish

We humans dump more than 2,100,000,000 metric tons of unwanted waste each year. Once dumped, the options of what to do with it are limited; it can be: burned, buried, or reclaimed through recycling or reuse.

Many throughout the world make their livelihoods reclaiming trash. Some trash-gleaners went to climate change summit in Cancún to lobby for priority over burning waste. John Vidal at Britain’s Guardian newspaper said trash-pickers from ten countries unfurled banners near the press area that read, ‘¡Paran la incineration!’ (Stop incineration!). Shouting (in Spanish) “‘If you mess with me, you mess with all of us.’ They accused incinerator companies of wasting energy, destroying millions of jobs around the world, increasing emissions, undermining recycling and causing the death and injury of workers.”

Source(s):

When life gives you hydrocarbons, make energy

A pair of Ugandan men collect trash, including plastic bags, and turn it into fuel for those needing cheap gas. “Fred Kyagulanyi and James Sendikwanawa used to get up in the dark to dump bags of rubbish in Kampala‘s suburbs,” says the story in Britain’s Guardian. The two friends, have “honed a technique to produce what Kyagulanyi calls ‘non-fossil fuel,’ made from refuse such as plastic bottles, polythene bags and organic waste…’We use all types of waste from plants, plastic bottles, shoe soles and all different types of organic waste,’ Kyagulanyi says. ‘We use all that waste to make fuel that runs petrol engines,’ adds Sendikwanawa, who is known as ‘engineer’ in Ndegye Township due to his day job: fixing biogas digesters on pit latrines.”

Source(s):

Guardian, Ugandans turn Kampala’s uncollected garbage into versatile fuel

Kyoto CO2 limits not to be extended this year

The United Nations envoy leading climate talks ruled out extending greenhouse gas limits in the Kyoto Protocol this year, leaving in place doubts about the future of a $2.7 billion a year part of the carbon market.

Source(s):

News from the California Republic

HSU professor scales redwoods for clues to global warming

Professor of Forestry at Humboldt State University, Stephen Sillett wants to learn the affects of global warming on redwoods. And, he climbs the giant to find out. To begin getting answers on how redwoods react to changing conditions, scientists are carefully measuring and implanting hundreds of high-tech sensors among coast redwoods at 16 sites ranging from Jedediah Smith State Park northeast of Crescent City to the Sierras to Big Sur. The research project is funded by Save the Redwoods, a San Francisco-based conservation group founded in 1918, with support from Ken Fisher, a billionaire money manager and redwoods advocate who graduated from Humboldt State University.

“What we’re seeing is that the bigger the tree is, the more it grows,” said Sillett, a pioneer in research high in the redwood forest canopy. “The bigger and older the tree, the more wood production there is. So pound for pound, you are going to get more carbon sequestered.”

The $2.5 million Redwoods and Climate Change Initiative has allowed Sillett and other specialists from Humboldt State and UC Berkeley to set up shop in some of California’s last remaining old-growth redwood groves. The researchers are climbing, poking, prodding, measuring and testing everything, including molecules of coast redwood and giant sequoia trees on 16 research plots throughout the ancient trees’ geographic range.

Not everyone is impressed with the findings, pointing out that nurserymen have for years pumped carbon dioxide into warm greenhouses to increase plant growth.

Source(s):

EPA fines Kettleman City toxic waste facility $302,000 for violations

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency levied a $302,100 fine Tuesday against Chemical Waste Management Inc., whichoperates  a toxic waste dump near a Central California farming community beset by unexplained birth defects, saying the company failed to properly manage carcinogenic polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. EPA tests at the landfill showed PCB concentrations of 440 parts per million, nearly nine times the level allowed under the Toxic Substances Control Act.

Source(s):

Arsenic: It’s what’s for dinner

Researchers conducting tests in the harsh environment of Mono Lake in California have discovered the first known microorganism on Earth able to thrive and reproduce using the toxic chemical arsenic. The microorganism substitutes arsenic for phosphorus in its cell components.

“The definition of life has just expanded,” said Ed Weiler, NASA’s associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s Headquarters in Washington. “As we pursue our efforts to seek signs of life in the solar system, we have to think more broadly, more diversely and consider life as we do not know it.”

Phosphorus is a central component of the energy-carrying molecule in all cells (adenosine triphosphate) and also the phospholipids that form all cell membranes. Arsenic, which is chemically similar to phosphorus, is poisonous for most life on Earth. Arsenic disrupts metabolic pathways because chemically it behaves similarly to phosphate.

“We know that some microbes can breathe arsenic, but what we’ve found is a microbe doing something new — building parts of itself out of arsenic,” said Felisa Wolfe-Simon, a NASA Astrobiology Research Fellow in residence at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif., and the research team’s lead scientist. “If something here on Earth can do something so unexpected, what else can life do that we haven’t seen yet?”

The team chose to explore Mono Lake because of its unusual chemistry, especially its high salinity, high alkalinity, and high levels of arsenic. This chemistry is in part a result of Mono Lake’s isolation from its sources of fresh water for 50 years.

The results of this study will inform ongoing research in many areas, including the study of Earth’s evolution, organic chemistry, biogeochemical cycles, disease mitigation and Earth system research. These findings also will open up new frontiers in microbiology and other areas of research.

Source(s):


The little high-speed engine that couldn’t

This week, as the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) was approving the first segment for construction near Fresno – and receiving more criticism from advocates of other regions – it was also being hammered by a “peer review group” of transportation experts.

The ad hoc group of experts, organized by the Legislature and headed by Will Kempton, the former state director of transportation, said in a report that the project needs “a thorough reassessment of a number of critical engineering, financial, economic and managerial issues.”

No wonder says Tim Cavanaugh at Reason.com, “The California High Speed Rail Authority is committed to breaking ground on a leg of the train that will serve passengers between the unincorporated town of Borden and the half-incarcerated town of Corcoran.

“Whether you call it the train from nowhere or the train to nowhere, nobody will be riding it even when it’s done. That’s not libertarian cant: The actual plan for the $4.15 billion leg is that upon completion it will sit idle until other sections of track are completed.”

It gets worse Cavanaugh points out, “Geography buffs are invited to try and make any sense out of the CHSRA’s proposed alignment. Not only does the authority plan to incur all the financial and public relations costs of driving a 150-mph train down the heavily populated and extremely wealthy San Francisco-to-San Jose corridor; but it then plans to sacrifice the only goal that could possibly make that trouble worthwhile:” a direct San Francisco to Los Angeles run.

Source(s):



In other golden-state green-jobs news

Governor-elect Jerry Brown campaigned on new investments in solar and wind power.  The Los Angeles Times story said Brown envisions, “building large-scale power plants that run on renewable resources and placing solar panels on parking-lot roofs, school buildings and along the banks of state highways. Although advocates of renewable energy tout the long-term savings of going green, billions of dollars would be required to reach the governor-elect’s green-energy goals.

“Nobody knows if the program would produce the ‘more than half a million green jobs’ Brown promised during the campaign, but many experts agree that it could lead to sharply higher utility rates.”

“Staff at the commission, which regulates Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison, San Diego Gas & Electric and a handful of smaller utilities and sets rates for most Californians, estimates the cost of the plan at roughly $60 billion over the next decade. That is more than state taxpayers will spend on the University of California and California State University systems combined over the same period.”

Source(s):

If California’s timber industry falls, will anyone hear it?

Lands owned by state and federal government lands contribute little to California’s wood supply (see the graphic below). Private landowners (the green area) now carry nearly all burden for California’s timber harvesting and its wood demand.


(Source: California Forestry Association  CA Timber Harvest Statistics 1978-2009.)

 

As previously noted on this site:

Our California forests have the capacity to produce all the wood we need and export some as well, yet we import 75% of our wood. You can bet the wood we import wasn’t harvested under restrictions as comprehensive as those within California’s Forest Practices Act. Did any of the harvests have a Timber Harvesting Plan that took water and wildlife into consideration?

Are You Eating Genetically Modified Foods? Relax. We’ve been eating GMOs for many, many years

Plums that have been genetically engineered to...
Plums that have been genetically engineered to be resistant to the plum pox virus (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You people in the developed world are certainly free to debate the merits of genetically modified foods, but can we please eat first? – Dr. Florence Wambugu of Kenya

 

Over at TheEnvironmentSite.org Environment Forum, EcoBlogger has posted an article titled Are You Eating Genetically Modified Foods? 7 Tips to Avoid Eating GMOs!

I would comment there at TheEnvironmentSite.org, and be done with it, but I don’t feel like registering for yet another user name and password to forget. So here goes…

Ecoblogger recommends, avoiding GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) by avoiding “conventional sugar,” soy, corn, Canola and cottonseed because, “Most blended oils in North America contain canola and cottonseed” and “Over 90% of this year’s sugar beet harvest will be Monsanto’s GM Roundup-Ready Sugar Beet.” Correct, according to a 2010 National Academies of Sciences study, more than four-fifths of the soybean, corn, and cotton acreage in the United States uses genetically engineered crops.

As you who have followed the Timberati blog for awhile know, I’m not afraid eating GMOs. After all, we already eat GM (also called GE for “genetically engineered”) soy, wheat, corn, rice, canola, tomato, sugar beets, cassava, and other crops with no ill effect. In fact, a thousand million meals from GM crops have been eaten with no ill effects. That track record should tell us something about their safety.

“Genetic engineering is more precise and predictable, yet it is regulated,” says Martina Newell McGloughlin, director of the University of California’s Biotechnology Research and Education Program. “There is no regulation at all on the traditional breeding system.” A traditional system that uses gamma radiation to force mutations.

And, never mind that, by definition, most of our agricultural crops are ‘genetically modified’; corn and wheat bear little resemblance to the grasses they started from.

Of course, almost by definition, all crop plants are ‘genetically modified.’ They are monstrous mutants capable of yield unnaturally large, free-threshing seeds or heavy, sweet fruit and dependent on human intervention to survive…Wheat has three whole diploid (double) genomes in each of its cells, descended from three different wild grasses… Matt Ridley, author of The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves

Ecoblogger writes, “Unfortunately there isn’t a lot of research, testing and results documented on the effects GMOs have on humans.” Hmmm….

There is broad scientific consensus that GE crops currently on the market are safe to eat. The National Research Council (NRC), a non-profit institution that provides science, technology and health policy advice to the US Congress, reports that the process of genetic engineering poses a similar risk of unintended consequences as conventional approaches of genetic alteration. After 14 years of cultivation and a cumulative total of 2 billion acres planted, GE crops have not caused a single instance of harm to human health or the environment. – Pamela Ronald, Professor of plant pathology, University of California, Davis

Ecoblogger recommends, “Buy Organically Grown Food – For now, the organic certification process is a relatively safe bet to ensure your food is free of GMOs, although this may not be the case in the future. Help support global sustainability by purchasing certified organically grown food.”

There’s global sustainability if you don’t mind losing rainforests. I’ve noted before:

[O]rganic farming needs more land to grow sustainable yields for the world. Worldwide, crops require 80 million tons of nitrogen to feed our current population. Generating that amount of nitrogen organically would require about six billion head of cattle plus the land to grow feed. [Now, do the math for the additional one billion on the way] Fossil fuels allow conventional farming to use less land than organic methods. “By spending not much energy to make fertilizer and run machinery — and trivial amounts of energy to ship the stuff we grow from the places it grows best,” writes Stephen Budiansky, a former editor of the scientific journal, Nature, “we have spared and conserved hundreds of millions of acres of land that otherwise would have had to be brought into agricultural production. That’s land that protects wildlife, that adds scenic beauty.” That means we spare wetlands, grasslands, forests, and rainforests from being cleared for agriculture.

Despite the fact that we:

  • have eaten lots of GMOs already and haven’t become ill;
  • are living longer;
  • have the ability to target only one gene instead of nuking all the DNA and getting collateral damage in hopes of producing a desired trait;
  • know that traditional method are no safer than genetic modification;

many still worry about GE/GM and the debate goes on. On its website, the Sierra Club uses up its hyperbole allotment going for simple lizard-brained terror, calling GM crops, “radically new and environmentally hazardous technology.” And Greenpeace is just plain crackers. “Do you ever eat major brands of bread, crackers or cereal? Are there canned soups or frozen dinners in your diet? If so, there’s a good chance you’re ingesting genetically engineered soy.” Oooh, boogedy-boogedy, I’m scared now.


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10,000 attendees set an example at the Cancún shindig

“Global warming is now such a serious threat to mankind that climate change experts are calling for Second World War-style rationing in rich countries to bring down carbon emissions,” environment correspondent, Louise Gray wrote in Britain’s Telegraph under the headline, “Cancun climate change summit: scientists call for rationing in developed world

Apparently a fair number of scientific papers have been published by Britain’s Royal Society saying that temperatures might rise as much as 4C (7.2F) by 2060. And to prevent that, at least one expert thinks World War II-style rationing would be a good idea.

Prof Anderson insisted that halting growth in the rich world does not necessarily mean a recession or a worse lifestyle, it just means making adjustments in everyday life such as using public transport and wearing a sweater rather than turning on the heating.

“I am not saying we have to go back to living in caves,” he said. “Our emissions were a lot less ten years ago and we got by okay then.”

So, the approximately 10,000 delegates to the Cancún shindig aka COP 16 [the 16th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change], while not meeting or staying in caves, have tightened their belts in solidarity:

The blind chasing after the blind in Cancún

Image credit: Freefoto.com

Briggs over at William M. Briggs, “statistician to the stars,” has a delightfully damning post about Cornell’s delegation to the shindig aka COP 16 [the 16th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change] in Cancún.

According to The Cornell Daily Sun, “A delegation of Cornell researchers will join the fight against climate change Monday in the annual United Nations Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico.” Eighteen students, plus Three Cornell professors — Prof. Antonio Bento, applied economics and management, Prof. Johannes Lehmann, soil sciences, Prof. Sean Sweeney, director of Cornell’s Global Labor Institute will comprise the Cornell delegation. The faculty members “will give formal presentations to the COP 16 on issues ranging from cap-and-trade offsets, sustainable agriculture and organized labor.”

According to the Daily Sun,

“The third research group will offer information “on how to avoid carbon dioxide losses from soils that would contribute to global warming, and how to increase organic carbon in soils that will be a sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide,” Lehmann said in an e-mail.

Lehmann, who will present in two “side events” meant to inform the delegates, expressed hope that his scientific research would affect the diplomatic bargaining.”

To which Briggs points out:

[I]f you begin to muse on soil physics, you’ll have missed the meat, which is that Lehmann, the only scientist in the group, is being shunted off onto a “side event”, which is “meant to inform the delegates.” Lehmann said, “The presentations by scientists are attended by negotiators that will hopefully be better informed through the material. Often, negotiators are directly interacting with presenters to deepen their knowledge.”

The Daily Sun’s article reports:

At the COP 16 , Bento will present a theoretical and computational model of a cap-and-trade model in the United States. In a cap-and-trade program, the government sets pollution caps and firms may purchase and trade carbon credits.

And Briggs notes:

Bento and team “will present a theoretical and computational model of a cap-and-trade model”, which—do I need to say this?—is based on output from climate models. A model of a model of a model. Put another way: an approximation of a surmise of a guess. What could go wrong?

Read the whole post  here: Cornell’s Cancun Climate Conference Crew. It’s worth it to marvel at the UNFCC process.

Background:
The United Nations Climate Change Conference is to be held in Cancún,
Mexico, from 29 November to 10 December 2010. What is it supposed to do?

According to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCC) website, the conference ” encompasses the sixteenth Conference
of the Parties (COP) and the sixth Conference of the Parties serving as
the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP), as well as the
thirty-third sessions of both the Subsidiary Body for Implementation
(SBI) and the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice
(SBSTA), and the fifteenth session of the AWG-KP and thirteenth session
of the AWG-LCA. To discuss future commitments for industrialized
countries under the Kyoto Protocol, the Conference of the Parties
serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP)
established a working group in December 2005 called the Ad Hoc Working
Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto
Protocol (AWG-KP). In Copenhagen, at its fifth session, the CMP
requested the AWG-KP to deliver the results of its work for adoption by
CMP 6 in Cancun.”

Got that? Well according to the UNFCC’s fact sheet, “Over a decade ago, most countries joined an international treaty — the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) — to begin to consider what can be done to reduce global
warming and to cope with whatever temperature increases are inevitable.
More recently, a number of nations approved an addition to the treaty:
the Kyoto Protocol [the US congress did not ratify it] , which has more powerful (and legally binding) measures. The UNFCCC secretariat supports all institutions involved in the climate change process, particularly the COP, the subsidiary bodies and their Bureau.”

“The negotiating process on climate change revolves around the sessions of
the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (COP), which meets every
year to review the implementation of the Convention. The COP adopts
decisions and resolutions, published in reports of the COP.  Successive
decisions taken by the COP make up a detailed set of rules for practical
and effective implementation of the Convention.”

“Thousands of participants including government representatives and observer organizations have attended previous climate change conferences.  The sessions in Bali attracted over 10,000 participants, including some 3,500 government officials, over 5,800 representatives of UN bodies and agencies, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, and nearly 1,500 accredited members of the media.”