Interesting Stuff :: Blog

Fascinating article on passive houses in today's New York Times. They have no heating system at all, are always the perfect temperature, floors and wall as warm as the air, and use 1/20 the energy of a regular house. This is how it works:

Using ultrathick insulation and complex doors and windows, the architect engineers a home encased in an airtight shell, so that barely any heat escapes and barely any cold seeps in. That means a passive house can be warmed not only by the sun, but also by the heat from appliances and even from occupants’ bodies.

Best of all, they don't cost much more to build than regular hose, at least in Europe, where the builders are close to the supply chain. There are some caveats, though:

Because a successful passive house requires the interplay of the building, the sun and the climate, architects need to be careful about site selection. Passive-house heating might not work in a shady valley in Switzerland, or on an urban street with no south-facing wall. Researchers are looking into whether the concept will work in warmer climates — where a heat exchanger could be used in reverse, to keep cool air in and warm air out.

Those of you out there who are into green building might want to see if you can be the ones who pioneer the warm-weather systems. 

We are all enjoying cheap oil prices for christmas, but not only might the respite not last very long, the implications for how much effort we will be able to put into developing a green economy as a result are dire, as well. An article in Financial Sense WrapUp lays out a short term issue that hasn't gotten much press yet:

According to Matt Simmons, by the end of 2009, Mexico will no longer be an oil exporter. If Simmons is correct, it will be very difficult to replace the oil revenue that has supported 40% of the Mexican budget. The Mexican government has recently taken the unprecedented step of voting to allow foreign oil companies to explore for oil in Mexico. In a country that celebrates the 1938 nationalization of its oil industry as a federal holiday, it was clearly an act of desperation. Promising offshore discoveries in Mexico will likely take decades to bring to production, according to Simmons, due to the extreme depths and massive technical challenges.

Unfortunately, it may be too little too late to replace the rapidly disappearing Cantarell production. In as little as 12-24 months, the effects may be felt both in Mexico and the US. Replacing the 1.3 million barrels per day the US now imports from Mexico won’t be easy (the US imports 1.4 million barrels per day from Saudi Arabia by means of comparison). For Mexico, the problems run much deeper, as they must quickly diversify their economy or face wrenching economic and social dislocations. The adjustment period will likely bring great change and tumult, perhaps across the border as well.

The author of this article contends "An investor with a longer term time horizon should own well-managed oil production, exploration and service companies, especially at these much lower valuations. The resource these companies bring to market is growing ever scarcer, and will be desperately needed for decades to come." He offers this assessment of how the new administration will handle the coming crisis. It's good news for investors, but not as good for the planet:

The new Obama administration wants rapid change into renewable energy sources. Those changes are expensive and will be difficult to sell at low oil prices. Government policies will likely encourage higher oil prices. Of course official acknowledgement of global oil depletion carries many political risks and would raise havoc with many of his supporters. As dire as the longer term situation appears, would any politician take severe political measures before shortages strike? Not likely.

Obama is going to have a lot of pressure from vested interests and will be taking advice from those he has gathered around him. While he has made it clear that he is in charge and that those around him are pragmatists who will implement his policies, the conventional wisdom is that a president's choice of advisers tells us more about how he will govern than anything else he has ever said or done before. Obama has chosen financial advisers who were largely responsible for starting the trainwreck we are now on when they worked for Bill Clinton. He has chosen a Secretary of Agriculture who is totally in the pocket of big agribusiness corporations and the corn ethanol industry. His foreign policy team is a hawkish crowd, all of whom supported the war in Iraq at the outset. He has chosen a Secretary of Education who is on record as basically wanting a kindler, gentler version of No Child Left Behind. The one shining light so far is his environmental team. They are the only ones I would call true progressives. Let's hope they are the ones who hold sway.

Perhaps, the others are all there to make amends and clean up their collective messes. The problem is that these are people who have already demonstrated they lack basic common sense and critical thinking skills. They pander to the moneyed class. Their fatal flaw is that they all still believe at their cores that the market is king; it's just needs a little tweaking. This pretty much means that as soon as things starts to seem on the mend, they will do something dumb again. The reality is that we live in a culture where 70% of GDP is based on debt-driven spending. There is just something fundamentally wrong with that, and until the powers that be realize that, there is going to be a world of hurt coming at us.

Right now, there is a big battle in the left to center blogosphere and progressive magazines like The Nation. While longtime progressives are up in arms about many of the things I have noted above, many of the folks who, after years or decades of political apathy, finally got out and decided to vote—and voted for Obama in huge numbers, are telling the progressives to shut up. There is this naive certainty that Obama will not let us down in any way and that we should just trust him to do the right thing—that attacking him before he has even done anything of substance just strengthens his real enemies and weakens the left. Well, while there may be some grains of truth to that sensibility, it ignores one key thing: If the left remains silent now, the only voices Obama will hear are those of industry (who do not have our best interests at hear), those of his advisers (i.e., more of the same), and what appears to be universal approval from his base. That is not a way to make good policy.

Those who have particular interests need to make their voices heard. Of course, it serves no purpose to trash Vilsack or Summers at this point, but it does serve a purpose to make a lot of noise about what needs to get done to fix the economy and the planet. For example, do we just let 100s of billions of dollars be spent on new roads, when they should perhaps be spent on mass transit instead? If we stay quiet about these things, we may only get a short-term fix, at best and lose the one opportunity we have to get on the right track. Now is not the time to sit back and savor our victory. The hard work has just begun.

For some good reading on what we really need to do, I suggest Plan B 3.0. (Note: This is a free download of the entire book, at least for now.)

The battle over how Obama's stimulus package will be spent has already begun. On one side, you have the unions pressing for road construction projects, primarily in the suburbs. On the other side, you have the advocates for green energy, mass transit, urban redevelopment, and the like. The latter group basically thinks the suburbs are a failed experiment and that we cannot afford to spend money on projects that cater to a lifestyle of long commutes and other unsustainabilities. I tend to agree, myself. This going to be a battle royale.

Yesterday, I took the recyclables that had been accumulating in my kitchen for the past month and dumped them in the brand spankin' new recycling bin that was provided by the city of Savannah. Who thought this day would ever come? I have to admit, though, I found it somewhat ironic that the informational materials that were left for me by the city were contained in a non-recyclable plastic bag.

I found mention of this video on one of those doom and gloom Web sites (which should perhaps be given more credence these days, considering recent world events). It is a BBC adaptation of a book written in 1909, a book that was remarkably prescient in many ways. I think the analogies to the present day are fairly clear, so without further editorialization:

This article on energy policy from yesterday's New York Times is a matter of great concern to me. If there is any delay in the implementation of a green initiative for whatever reason, we can pretty much kiss any hope of change on this matter goodbye. We may already be past the point of no return and any further delay will most certainly be catastrophic. Contact your reps and put major pressure on them now to move forward on this. Otherwise, we could be looking at the Kunstler scenario playing itself out.

Though I have historically been a technological optimist, I am actually worried about any policy that is solely focused on science saving the day. There needs to be equal or more emphasis on the three Rs of the green movement: reduce, reuse, and recycle. Problem is that the first two of these Rs don't support corporations in any way, so there are not as many lobbyists devoted to them as there are to sucking money out of the Feds to do green energy research. We can support each other through reuse though. You can start by buying used items for holiday presents. This does present a diemma, though. If people make the green choice to buy used goods, the consumer spending that supports big biz will continue to spiral downward. The question is whether the economy would actually be better off if we bought used goods and new services from people in our towns and stopped supporting big biz unless there was no choice. I am not smart enough to know the answer to that question, but it certainly feels right.

Far be it from me to be partisan, but ...

Update: Don't forget to vote in the run-off on December 2! 

OK. I think I am about to touch the third rail of green politics—the unquestioned assumption that eating local food is better for the environment. Well, the other day, I stumbled on to a blog post at HuffPo that led me to an article on Salon.com called "Is local food really miles better?" Now, I have always been a big supporter of local foods, especially local organics. (It even says so in my GreenSpace profile). So, I come at this subject with some trepidation. But, journalistic curiosity must always take precedence. Salon.com is a very progressive Web site. It's been around since the early days of the Web. However, they are true journalists, so they don't shy away from facts that might raise questions about ideas dearly held by the faithful. The author of the article lives in San Francisco and frequents a local farmer's market. She writes:

I noticed a page on the market's Web site that asks, "How Far Does Food Travel to Get to Your Plate?" Too far, it concludes. According to a 2001 study by the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, the average apple travels 1,555 miles to a Chicago terminal market where wholesalers sell produce to grocery stores. A San Francisco Farmers Market apple, on the other hand, only travels about 105 miles to the Ferry Plaza market building.

So less miles must mean easier on the environment. Well, there's more to it than that:

[So] how does that translate to carbon dioxide emissions? To find out, I crunched the numbers on five types of produce -- apples, oranges, lettuce, greens and squash -- with fuel efficiency estimates from the Environmental Protection Agency and Bay Area truck dealers. Factor in carbon emission figures from Argonne National Laboratory, and I had rough carbon footprints for each farmer and wholesaler.

Local farmers won one category, proving more carbon-friendly on squash. While farmers came from cities about an hour's drive from San Francisco, wholesalers had imported their squash through Arizona from Mexico. In these cases, the idea that more food miles equals more fossil fuels appeared to be true.

But wholesalers beat local farmers on the four other produce items, boasting fewer average carbon dioxide emissions per pound of apples, oranges, lettuce and greens. Apple distributors got almost all their apples from Washington's Yakima Valley, about 700 miles away. (Safeway's California stores get Granny Smith apples from Stockton during fall and winter, and from Washington the rest of the year.) While the two local apple farmers traveled one-tenth the distance, their loads averaged less than 700 pounds -- and generated six times more carbon dioxide per pound of apples than the semi-trailer trucks.

Basically, some of the efficiencies in large-scale production actually trump the closeness of local food. However, there may be a middle ground:

[A] regional system with some urban distribution centers produced less carbon dioxide than a purely local system. The local food movement may adopt a system where smaller growers deliver to larger growers, who then bring food into the city, Pirog says. The primary reason local food isn't as efficient is that small farmers "don't have the infrastructure in place like the big guys do," he says.

In her blog post, Isabel Reminds us that supporting local farmers is not all about carbon emissions, though:

Local farming builds community. Those small-time farmers yet unsophisticated in the means of transportation and year-round gardening will only learn how to efficiently grow and transport their food (albeit a short distance) if they are given a fair shot. According to the Environmental Working Group, The U.S. government--ie, taxpayers--gave "66% of crop subsidy benefits to 10% of the beneficiaries of those programs." More than likely, your backyard farmer was not one of them. If you want to help your neighbor more effectively run his business, support him. Furthermore, farmers markets are a glimpse at the good old days, when people gathered in town halls and communal spaces. They are your excuse to visit Main Street once a week to connect in real time with friends and neighbors--instead of staying home and staring into an anonymous online abyss.

Some of you are probably familiar with the book Cradle to Cradle. It  is generally considered one of the most important books ever written on the subject of sustainable design. I came across this video by one of the authors, William McDonough, from a talk at a TED conference (which stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design). Enjoy.

 

An article in The New York Times raises a concern that has been in the back of my mind for some time. Basically, are we on the cusp of real change or has the green movement already plateaued? Well, consider this recent survey:

A study by the Shelton Group, an advertising agency and market research company based in Knoxville, Tenn., that focuses on environmental products, showed that consumers surveyed in 2007 were between 22 and 55 percent less likely to buy a wide range of green products than in 2006. The slipping economy had an effect, but message overload appeared to be a major factor as well, said Suzanne C. Shelton, the company’s president.

“What we’ve been seeing in focus groups is a real green backlash,” Ms. Shelton said. Over the last six months, she added, when the agency screened environmentally themed advertisements, “we see over half the room roll their eyes: ‘Not another green message.’ ”

People are experiencing what is being called green fatigue from all competing ideas in the marketplace today:

An environmentally conscientious consumer is left to wonder: are low-energy compact fluorescent bulbs better than standard incandescents, even if they contain traces of mercury? Which salad is more earth-friendly, the one made with organic mixed greens trucked from thousands of miles away, or the one with lettuce raised on nearby industrial farms? Should they support nuclear power as a clean alternative to coal?

One consumer had this recent experience:

Eddie Stern, 38, a media strategist in Durango, Colo., said he recently “went nuts, just trying to buy a car” because of the “overload of info, from the news, from the Internet, from quote-unquote experts on the street.”

Every new tidbit of research seemed to contradict the last. Some environmentalists made the case for a new hybrid, others insisted that buying a used model with a standard engine would save the huge amounts of energy that go into manufacturing a new vehicle. Other environmentalists supported biodiesel, on the grounds that it means, essentially, growing gas. Others countered that biodiesel still pollutes.

Mr. Stern said he finally settled (after a coin flip) on what seemed like the ideal compromise, a used Ford Escape hybrid. Ideal, until his brother, who works in the solar-power industry, asked, “Where are you going to bury the battery?”

These are all valid questions, and like those from a recent post on my personal blog on the efficacy of carbon trading, raise concerns that profit is becoming the prime force driving the movement. Obviously, whatever choice Mr. Stern would have made benefitted a different sector of the economy. In other words, one of the reasons we have competing messages (and thus message overload) is that people want to sell us stuff. It is even more evidence that the market alone cannot be trusted to solve this problem. It is vital that an independent group with no prior agenda sort through the morass and prioritize for people what to do. It may be that all of Mr. Stern's options were essentially equivalent, so there was need for angst. Perhaps he could have made any of the choices and felt OK. But,such an entity would have to be truly independent. For example:

Leaders of Greenpeace ... decided to help its audience prioritize environmental concerns, said Kate Smolski, a senior legislative coordinator. So instead of asking people to juggle disparate concerns — including nuclear waste, coal pollution, deforestation and ocean wildlife endangerment — the group now tries to bundle them under the umbrella of climate change.

So now, when the group campaigns against nuclear energy, it labels reactors a “false solution” to global warming. When the group talks about deforestation, the focus is on its contribution to the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

“It’s very helpful,” Ms. Smolski said, “to show that it’s all connected.”

Now, the problem here is that Greenpeace is a longstanding anti-nuclear activist organization that is viewed negatively by a large percentage of the population. While they no doubt have good advice to offer on some accounts, they certainly have a biased view on nuclear power, as evidenced by the quote above. Personally, I don't have enough information to make up my mind yet about nuclear power. What I do know is that a number of other environmental organizations are more open-minded, albeit not unequivocally. A truly independent agency would offer solutions that had widespread consensus rather than doing the non-profit equivalent of a big corporation—using the crisis to advance their own interests regardless of the actual facts.