Green Design » Stuff

Too Much Cash For Clunkers?

WorldChanging Team — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 19:48:12 +0000

By Lisa Stiffler

The car buy-back program was a costly way to cut carbon.

The stats from the Cash-for-Clunkers program sound so promising: more than 625,000 gas guzzlers taken off the road in exchange for more fuel-efficient models. About 84 percent of the trade-ins were trucks, while 59 percent of the new purchases were cars, according to Consumer Reports.

The top three vehicles scrapped:

Ford Explorer 4WD
Ford F150 Pickup 2WD
Jeep Grand Cherokee 4WD

In exchange for:

Toyota Corolla
Honda Civic
Ford Focus

This had to be a big win for the environment, no? Well...not really, especially if you were hoping for a cost-effective win. University of California Davis transportation economist Christopher Knittel ran the numbers:

Miles per gallon for the vehicles being scrapped: 16.3 (Consumer Reports put the latest numbers at 15.8, but it's still close)
MPG for the new cars: 24.8
Assumed miles driven per year for each: 12,000
Gallons of gas saved per year: 270
Tons of carbon dioxide saved per year: 2.7

Assuming that the clunker would have been on the road for five more years, and given that the average rebate was $4,200, plus giving some value to the non-CO2 pollutants that are removed by the more efficient new cars, the price per ton of CO2 not released to the environment: $237.

By comparison, the price of CO2 on the European trading market is about $22 a ton right now.

And that's Knittel's best case scenario (see more on how he calculated these figures in this paper, published by the University of California Energy Institute). In reality, many of the clunkers likely weren't being driven that much before they were scrapped, the new cars could be driven even farther given their better mileage and delightful newness, and the life of the trade-ins is more likely three or four years, not five. The actual price per ton could be closer to $500. That could buy a lot of saved trees or weather-proofed windows.

Which isn't to say that swapping 16 mpg vehicles for 25 mpg ones isn't a good thing. As one of my colleagues pointed out in an early blog post, you do get some real bang for those bucks. And of course the prime purpose of the $3 billion Cash for Clunkers was to sell cars, and it sure did that.

This piece originally appeared in Sightline Institute's blog, The Daily Score.

Photo credit: Flickr/dno1967, Creative Commons License.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Stuff at 11:48 AM)

Too Much Cash For Clunkers?

WorldChanging Team — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 19:48:12 +0000

By Lisa Stiffler

The car buy-back program was a costly way to cut carbon.

The stats from the Cash-for-Clunkers program sound so promising: more than 625,000 gas guzzlers taken off the road in exchange for more fuel-efficient models. About 84 percent of the trade-ins were trucks, while 59 percent of the new purchases were cars, according to Consumer Reports.

The top three vehicles scrapped:

Ford Explorer 4WD

Ford F150 Pickup 2WD

Jeep Grand Cherokee 4WD

In exchange for:

Toyota Corolla

Honda Civic

Ford Focus

This had to be a big win for the environment, no? Well...not really, especially if you were hoping for a cost-effective win. University of California Davis transportation economist Christopher Knittel ran the numbers:

Miles per gallon for the vehicles being scrapped: 16.3 (Consumer Reports put the latest numbers at 15.8, but it's still close)
MPG for the new cars: 24.8
Assumed miles driven per year for each: 12,000
Gallons of gas saved per year: 270
Tons of carbon dioxide saved per year: 2.7

Assuming that the clunker would have been on the road for five more years, and given that the average rebate was $4,200, plus giving some value to the non-CO2 pollutants that are removed by the more efficient new cars, the price per ton of CO2 not released to the environment: $237.

By comparison, the price of CO2 on the European trading market is about $22 a ton right now.

And that's Knittel's best case scenario (see more on how he calculated these figures in this paper, published by the University of California Energy Institute). In reality, many of the clunkers likely weren't being driven that much before they were scrapped, the new cars could be driven even farther given their better mileage and delightful newness, and the life of the trade-ins is more likely three or four years, not five. The actual price per ton could be closer to $500. That could buy a lot of saved trees or weather-proofed windows.

Which isn't to say that swapping 16 mpg vehicles for 25 mpg ones isn't a good thing. As one of my colleagues pointed out in an early blog post, you do get some real bang for those bucks. And of course the prime purpose of the $3 billion Cash for Clunkers was to sell cars, and it sure did that.

This piece originally appeared in Sightline Institute's blog, The Daily Score.

Photo credit: Flickr/dno1967, Creative Commons License.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Stuff at 11:48 AM)

Colbert Report Presents Primer On Climate Change

Colin Beavan — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 21:01:22 +0000

So Bill McKibben of 350.org went on Colbert the other night and explained how we can save our planet. Watch Bill below and join 350's October 24 day of action here.

The Colbert Report Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Bill McKibben
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Protests

This piece originally appeared in No Impact Man.

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(Posted by Colin Beavan in Stuff at 1:01 PM)

Collaborative Services: How to Have More By Owning Less

WorldChanging Team — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 06:20:34 +0000

Collaborative Services: Social Innovation and Design for Sustainability
by François Jégou, Ezio Manzini

From shared carpentry studios to modern hitchhiking systems, this innovative study by sustainable design visionaries Jégou and Manzini contains a wealth of ideas for creating new shared services and making existing models more appealing and effective. Owning less, sharing more, and utilizing systems that make cooperation easy could propel us toward a new future of sustainable communities that can maximize the potential of our space, time, and energy.

This piece is a part of Resources from the Worldchanging Library. Throughout this series, we will present the best resources from our archives. To view the complete list, please click here.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Stuff at 10:20 PM)

Collaborative Services: How to Have More By Owning Less

WorldChanging Team — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 06:20:34 +0000

Collaborative Services: Social Innovation and Design for Sustainability
by François Jégou, Ezio Manzini

From shared carpentry studios to modern hitchhiking systems, this innovative study by sustainable design visionaries Jégou and Manzini contains a wealth of ideas for creating new shared services and making existing models more appealing and effective. Owning less, sharing more, and utilizing systems that make cooperation easy could propel us toward a new future of sustainable communities that can maximize the potential of our space, time, and energy.

This piece is a part of Resources from the Worldchanging Library. Throughout this series, we will present the best resources from our archives. To view the complete list, please click here.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Stuff at 10:20 PM)

Transmaterial 2: Tracking Emerging Sustainable Materials

WorldChanging Team — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 06:17:28 +0000

Transmaterial 2: A Catalog of Materials That Redefine Our Physical Environment
by Blaine Brownell

While Blaine Brownell's crusade to find, evaluate and report on emerging sustainable materials feels like a set description for a "bright green" science fiction movie, it stays grounded in the philosophy that "in order to stay at the cutting edge of design, a knowledge of the uses, properties, and sources of new materials is essential." Brownell continues his frontal assault on the future of materials online at http://transmaterial.net/, launched anew in July of 2009.

This piece is a part of Resources from the Worldchanging Library. Throughout this series, we will present the best resources from our archives. To view the complete list, please click here.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Stuff at 10:17 PM)

Shopping Our Way to Safety

WorldChanging Team — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 23:48:28 +0000

Shopping Our Way to Safety: How We Changed from Protecting the Environment to Protecting Ourselves
by Andrew Szasz

Fearful of public water fountains, you buy bottled water instead. By examining this type of phenomenon, sociologist Andrew Szasz exposes the ways in which Americans have retreated from tackling public problems like pollution and isolated themselves with lifestyle choices that will protect them from the harm everyone else is suffering--what he calls "inverted quarantines." The result, he says, has been a more dangerous world and more anxious consumers.

This piece is a part of Resources from the Worldchanging Library. Throughout this series, we will present the best resources from our archives. To view the complete list, please click here.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Stuff at 3:48 PM)

Basel Action Network

WorldChanging Team — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 23:34:20 +0000

Image by Getty Images via Daylife
The Basel Action Network (BAN) is a policy advocacy group that researches and investigates issues of toxic waste. BAN drives campaigns to eliminate toxic, electronic waste dumping, especially in developing countries. As the only network in the world doing such work, it is determined to counter the effects of toxic trade. Not only does BAN want to ban waste trade, they encourage and promote toxic free, green alternatives to product design.

This piece is a part of Resources from the Worldchanging Library. Throughout this series, we will present the best resources from our archives. To view the complete list, please click here.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Stuff at 3:34 PM)

Basel Action Network

WorldChanging Team — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 23:34:20 +0000

Image by Getty Images via Daylife
The Basel Action Network (BAN) is a policy advocacy group that researches and investigates issues of toxic waste. BAN drives campaigns to eliminate toxic, electronic waste dumping, especially in developing countries. As the only network in the world doing such work, it is determined to counter the effects of toxic trade. Not only does BAN want to ban waste trade, they encourage and promote toxic free, green alternatives to product design.

This piece is a part of Resources from the Worldchanging Library. Throughout this series, we will present the best resources from our archives. To view the complete list, please click here.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Stuff at 3:34 PM)

Antiques of the Future

WorldChanging Team — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 23:06:19 +0000

Antiques of the Future
by Lisa Roberts

Product designer Lisa Roberts showcases here the mass-produced objects she believes will be valuable in the future, once their production is discontinued. While many items are inexpensive, all are well made with "a strong and immediate visual appeal" like the streamlined Garbino trash can, available in biodegradable corn-based plastic for $7.50. Her idea that products should last -- and that consumers should want to keep them -- is an invaluable part of designing a sustainable future.

This resource was mentioned by Adele Peters in her article, Heirloom Design

This piece is a part of Resources from the Worldchanging Library. Throughout this series, we will present the best resources from our archives. To view the complete list, please click here.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Stuff at 3:06 PM)

Antiques of the Future

WorldChanging Team — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 23:06:19 +0000

Antiques of the Future
by Lisa Roberts

Product designer Lisa Roberts showcases here the mass-produced objects she believes will be valuable in the future, once their production is discontinued. While many items are inexpensive, all are well made with "a strong and immediate visual appeal" like the streamlined Garbino trash can, available in biodegradable corn-based plastic for $7.50. Her idea that products should last -- and that consumers should want to keep them -- is an invaluable part of designing a sustainable future.

This resource was mentioned by Adele Peters in her article, Heirloom Design

This piece is a part of Resources from the Worldchanging Library. Throughout this series, we will present the best resources from our archives. To view the complete list, please click here.

CC photo credit

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Stuff at 3:06 PM)

Unscientific America 2: Buy The Book – And Read It

Joe Romm — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 19:27:01 +0000

The fate of the next 50 generations may well be determined in the next several months and the next several years. Will Congress agree to a shrinking GHG cap and the clean energy transformation? If not, you can scratch a global climate deal. But even if the bill passes and a global deal is achieved — both will need to be continuously strengthened in coming years, as the increasingly worrisome science continues to inform the policy, just as in the case of the Montréal Protocol on the ozone-depleting substances.

In short, the fate of perhaps the next 100 billion people to walk the Earth rests in the hands of scientists (and those who understand the science) trying to communicate the dire nature of the climate problem (and the myriad solutions available now) as well as the ability of the media, the public, opinion makers, and political leaders to understand and deal with that science.

And so what could be more timely — and disquieting — than a book titled Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens our Future? The book is by Chris Mooney, whose science blog was a major inspiration for me to pursue blogging, and scientist Sheril Kirshenbaum.

While it notably and presciently disses former TV meteorologist Watts for his unscientific obsession with pushing weather data in the climate debate (see “Unscientific America, Part 1: From the moon-landing deniers to WattsUpWithThat“), climate-saturated CP readers will be happy to know that very little of the book actually focuses on global warming.

Rather, this short, highly readable book is a survey of the sorry state of scientific understanding and communication in this country, ending with some proposals for improving the situation. Here are some of the interesting/depressing factoids from the book:

For every five hours of cable news, one minute is devoted to science;

46% of Americans believe the earth is less than 10,000 years old;

The number of newspapers with science sections has shrunken by two-thirds in the last 20 years

Just 18% of Americans know a scientist personally

The overwhelming majority of Americans polled in late 2007 either couldn’t name a scientific role model or named “people who are either not scientists or not alive

On the flip side, the book describes at length a problem I discuss here — Why scientists aren’t more persuasive, Part 1.

Scientists who are also great public communicators, like Carl Sagan or Richard Feynman, have grown scarcer as science has become increasingly specialized. Moreover, the media likes the glib and the dramatic, which is the style most scientists deliberately avoid. As Jared Diamond (author of Collapse) wrote in a must-read 1997 article on scientific messaging (or the lack thereof), “Scientists who do communicate effectively with the public often find their colleagues responding with scorn, and even punishing them in ways that affect their careers.” After Carl Sagan became famous, he was rejected for membership in the National Academy of Sciences in a special vote. This became widely known, and, Diamond writes, “Every scientist is capable of recognizing the obvious implications for his or her self-interest.

Scientists who have been outspoken about global warming have been repeatedly attacked as having a “political agenda.” As one 2006 article explained, “For a scientist whose reputation is largely invested in peer-reviewed publications and the citations thereof, there is little professional payoff for getting involved in debates that mix science and politics.”

Mooney also lays out the “tribulations of the science pipeline” by quoting “a painfully eloquent recent blog commenter” on Science Progress:

I’m a recent PhD graduate (Aug’ 2008). I’m unemployed. I am valued at negative $75,000 as a result of my school loans. For an increasing number of PhD graduates, there is NO job at the end of the PhD tunnel, unless you opt for the path of the underpaid, undervalued limbo lifestyle of a postdoc. After seeing what my predecessors have suffered on that path (~10 years of postdocing, and STILL no tenure-track job?), I chose NOT to follow in their weary footsteps. I have found that I’m not only overqualified for many positions that I would be happy to hold, but I am also considered by recruiters to be very narrowly-qualified (despite my multidisciplinary interests and skills) for anything at all except being a lab monkey and working for $30,000 a year. Had I to do it over again, I would not choose a PhD, at least not a general science degree. I would have gone to medical or law school, or perhaps a PhD in public health (a very rapidly growing field). At least after training in these programs, your skill set is clearly defined, and you can be confident that you will have a job post-graduation.

If a projection Mooney quotes is right — “the chance of a PhD recipient under age 35 winning a tenure-track job has tumbled to only 7%” — then he offers a crucial suggestion:

Why not change the paradigm and arm graduate-level science students with the skills to communicate the value of what science does and to get better in touch with our culture — while pointing out in passing that having more diverse skills can only help them navigate today’s job market, and may even be the real key to preserving US competitiveness?

Meanwhile let’s encourage public policy makers, leaders of the scientific community, and philanthropist who care about the role of science in our society to create a new range of nonprofit, public-interest fellowships and job positions whose express purpose is to connect science with other sectors of society.

The book ends with a quote from C. P. Snow’s famous “two cultures” lecture, in which he “express the nature of change we need fixing fleet, yet powerfully”:

We require a common culture in which science is an essential component. Otherwise we shall never see the possibilities, either for evil or good.

Of course, that lecture was 50 years ago — and the divide seems as big as ever, so that isn’t a cause for much optimism.

I do think that every scientist-in-training today should be required to take a course in communication, a course in energy, and a course in climate science. The smart ones will specialize in some discipline related to sustainability because when the nation and the world get desperate about global warming in the next decade or two, the entire focus of society, of scientists and engineers, and of academia will be directed toward a WWII-scale effort to mitigate what we can and adapting to the myriad miseries that our mypopic dawdling has made inevitable.

My one small problem with the book’s analysis is that it portrays US popular culture, especially Hollywood, as anti-scientist, but that was really true before the rise of IT, the internet, and rich nerds. TV in particular is much more favorably disposed toward scientist characters than movies were, say, two or three decades ago. If I have time, I’ll blog on that.

Normally I half-jokingly tell people they only need to buy my books, not read them. I mean who reads non-fiction books cover to cover anymore? But this is one to buy and read in its entirety (which is only 132 pages of text).

Kudos to Mooney and Kirshenbaum.

You can read RealClimate’s review here.

This piece originally appeared in Climate progress.

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(Posted by Joe Romm in Stuff at 11:27 AM)

Hi Honey I’m Home – The New Hobby That’s Creating A Buzz In Britain’s Towns And Cities

WorldChanging Team — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 21:05:53 +0000

By Caroline Davies

The humble native honeybee has been dying out in recent years due to disease, but it may have found an unlikely ally in a creature which shares a reputation for busyness: the urban dweller.
Apiarist courses in many places are over-subscribed and membership of beekeeping associations has shot up with the increased awareness of the plight of the productive pollinator. Those without gardens are increasingly using rooftops for their hives.

Now Johannes Paul's company Omlet is helping to transform the traditionally rural art of beekeeping for the city dweller.

Under a leaden sky in the allotment at St James's Park in London yesterday, Paul and his three co-founders unveiled the futuristic Beehaus, a plastic horizontal hive which at first glance resembles a giant coolbox on legs.

"We're aiming for the hobby beekeeper, those who want to live their self-sufficiency dreams a little," said Paul.

With promises of 50 jars of homemade honey a year they hope to tempt the busy townie who dreams of the good life. And with the support of Natural England, the agency responsible for safeguarding England's natural environment, its green credentials seem intact.

Certainly, there is a market. "There has been a definite shift in the demographics of people coming into beekeeping," said Tim Lovett, chairman of the British Beekeepers' Association, which has seen membership increase by 3,000 to 14,500 in the last 18 months.

"Many of our new members are in urban settings, the worried wealthy, so to speak. They are environmentally aware people, who would like to do a lot more than they are able because of their busy lives.

"They are the concerned working families, the professionals under pressure from their kids who are getting the story at school. And now they are getting the message. Beekeeping is not incompatible with busy family and working life."

But with urban beekeeping comes responsibility. There are fears would-be beekeepers, seduced by the apparent simplicity of the new hive, could order on a whim with no thought for the practicalities. This could lead to the spread of diseases, the death of their bees or huge swarms in their neighbours' gardens.

"These are legitimate concerns," said Dr Tom Tew, chief scientist for Natural England, "and the first thing we would stress is that anyone thinking of keeping bees should speak to their local beekeeper association.

"But," he said of the Beehaus, "we support anything that helps promote the honeybee."

Last year more than 30% of honeybees died from disease, mainly varroa mite. This year the percentage looks still to be in the high teens or lower 20s, which is not sustainable. It is estimated the honeybee, through pollination and honey, contributes £150m annually to the economy.

Omlet, whose plastic chicken coop, Eglu, sparked a wave of urban chicken keeping, said it would offer Beehaus parties and local beekeeping courses. It will supply everything – including full bee suit – in the £495 price. Bees cost extra, however, at £80 to £150 a colony.

"Obviously, they have had great success with the Eglu," said Lovett. "But going down to the local broiler house, rescuing some redundant chickens and putting them at the end of your garden, is not terribly difficult. You feed them, water them, take the eggs out now and again, and if they do escape the local urban fox will get them. But with bees, you need to know what you are doing.

"It's very difficult to get on a course. Ours are full to the gunnels," he said. "And they are going to have difficulty in supplying bees. Maintaining supplies is a real problem.

"However, we do welcome this new hive. It will be a way in to beekeeping for a group of people. But there will be limitations. We haven't discovered the holy grail. But it is a modest, useful step.

"What people must remember is that one hive quickly become two, two become four and four become eight."

Check out these related stories in the Worldchanging archive:

Apiculture and Colony Collapse Disorder

Principle 5: Ecosystem Services and Ecological Economics

An Urban Home for Bees, Birds and Butterflies

This piece originally appeared in The Guardian.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Stuff at 1:05 PM)

Fun And Games With Human Misery

Ethan Zuckerman — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 21:10:41 +0000

Here’s a fun game to play with friends, particularly friends who work on social ventures or other world-changing projects. Ask each person what issues they’d work on if they were given $500 million, $50 million or $5 million dollars to spend. With thoughtful friends, you’ll get different answers for different funding levels. It’s not realistic to tackle huge global problems – curing malaria, building sewage and fresh water systems for villages worldwide – at the $5m level, but you often learn about fascinating problems that might be solvable with a small amount of concerted effort.

My $5 million answer is usually “natural-gas flaring“, a practice that’s so environmentally irresponsible and dangerous for communities that it should be a no-brainer to guilt global petroleum companies with $5 million of focused bad publicity. (Part of the fun of the game is that you can argue with your friends about how much money is realistic to tackle any of these problems.)

The best $50 million answer I heard lately came from my friend Colin McCormick, a physics and policy wonk in DC, who wonders whether you could destroy the small arms trade that enables violent insurrection around the world with $50 million worth of research on ceramics. His idea was to create a ceramic that could be placed within 7.62 shells, the ammunition used in AK-47s and other inexpensive assault rifles. When detonated, the shell would trigger a chemical change in the ceramic, causing it to expand and bond to the rifled barrel. Guns fired using these rounds would become unusable. The idea would be to mix small numbers of compromised rounds into ammo released through the global arms trade, in the hopes of making it increasingly dangerous to buy illegal ammo without risking destruction of weapons.

I have no idea whether such an idea is realistic, but it’s one of the few ideas I’ve heard that might have an impact on the global small arms trade. While controls exist to prevent the sale of ammunition to anyone other than legitimate government entities, these controls are routinely skirted, and a dealer with a small number of the right connections is able to make millions very quickly selling ammunition to forces who aren’t able to legally purchase weaponry.

The fine folks at the Small Arms Survey produce countless publications on the arms trade. But very few are as entertaining and easy to read as an 8-page cartoon they published by Robert Butler. Titled “Adventures of a Would-Be Arms Dealer“, it tells the story of an arms control inspector who flies to Rwanda, bribes an old friend to produce an end-user certificate (specifying that arms are to be sold to the Rwandan army), and then arranges a deal to purchase and transport 2 million rounds of 7.62 shells to rural Somalia. He concludes that, with an upfront investment of $500,000, he could turn a million dollar profit with little more than a trip to Kigali and a couple of phonecalls.

As I read the story, I realized I knew most of the terminology used, not from a close study of the issue, but from Frederick Forsyth’s classic novel, “The Dogs of War“. In the novel, Forsyth outlines in extremely specific detail the machinations necessary to mount a coup in a nation that sounds a whole lot like Equatorial Guinea. At least two failed coups in Equatorial Guinea – one in 1973 and the more recent Wonga Coup - have been linked to Forsyth’s novel. (Some have linked Forsyth to the 1973 coup, which he admits knowing about and researching, though won’t admit to charges he helped finance it.) The methods his characters used to obtain end-user certificates and buy ammunition in Eastern Europe are almost identical to those that Butler outlines almost 35 years later.

For me, either the suspiciously accurate novel or the eminently readable comic go a long way in turning a distant – though critical – concern into a real, tangible problem. It makes me wish that more journalists and activists would look for creative ways to tell these stories and make them more real to readers.

Along that line, I have to offer a shout-out to Wired’s recent coverage of Somali piracy. I think this is a stupid story to be following – it’s more spectacle than substance and doesn’t do much to help people understand why the situation in Somalia is so desperate – but a recent set of Wired stories does an excellent job of turning a distant story into a tangible one.

Noah Schactman and Scott Carney offer an interview with a Somali pirate that helps explain the economics of the trade. It’s illustrated with a video made by pirates aboard a ship they’d recently captured. The video is pretty remarkable – it’s the sort of braggadochio you and your friends might engage in had you just seized a multi-million dollar ship with the reasonable expectation that you’d be able to ransom it for millions of dollars.

But the piece de resistance is Cutthroat Capitalism, a flash game that invites you to man a small boat out of Eyl, pick likely looking targets in the Gulf of Aden, board them and negotiate ransom. I quickly picked up a cruise ship, fed my hostages, acted erraticly while on the satphone to the negotiator and collected a $4 million ransom. With buttons that let you beat or kill hostages, it’s one of the more cold-blooded simulations I’ve ever seen, but does an effective job of making it clear that piracy is deeply profitable for those involved.
This piece originally appeared in My Heart's in Accra.

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(Posted by Ethan Zuckerman in Stuff at 1:10 PM)

Fun And Games With Human Misery

Ethan Zuckerman — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 21:10:41 +0000

Here’s a fun game to play with friends, particularly friends who work on social ventures or other world-changing projects. Ask each person what issues they’d work on if they were given $500 million, $50 million or $5 million dollars to spend. With thoughtful friends, you’ll get different answers for different funding levels. It’s not realistic to tackle huge global problems – curing malaria, building sewage and fresh water systems for villages worldwide – at the $5m level, but you often learn about fascinating problems that might be solvable with a small amount of concerted effort.

My $5 million answer is usually “natural-gas flaring“, a practice that’s so environmentally irresponsible and dangerous for communities that it should be a no-brainer to guilt global petroleum companies with $5 million of focused bad publicity. (Part of the fun of the game is that you can argue with your friends about how much money is realistic to tackle any of these problems.)

The best $50 million answer I heard lately came from my friend Colin McCormick, a physics and policy wonk in DC, who wonders whether you could destroy the small arms trade that enables violent insurrection around the world with $50 million worth of research on ceramics. His idea was to create a ceramic that could be placed within 7.62 shells, the ammunition used in AK-47s and other inexpensive assault rifles. When detonated, the shell would trigger a chemical change in the ceramic, causing it to expand and bond to the rifled barrel. Guns fired using these rounds would become unusable. The idea would be to mix small numbers of compromised rounds into ammo released through the global arms trade, in the hopes of making it increasingly dangerous to buy illegal ammo without risking destruction of weapons.

I have no idea whether such an idea is realistic, but it’s one of the few ideas I’ve heard that might have an impact on the global small arms trade. While controls exist to prevent the sale of ammunition to anyone other than legitimate government entities, these controls are routinely skirted, and a dealer with a small number of the right connections is able to make millions very quickly selling ammunition to forces who aren’t able to legally purchase weaponry.

The fine folks at the Small Arms Survey produce countless publications on the arms trade. But very few are as entertaining and easy to read as an 8-page cartoon they published by Robert Butler. Titled “Adventures of a Would-Be Arms Dealer“, it tells the story of an arms control inspector who flies to Rwanda, bribes an old friend to produce an end-user certificate (specifying that arms are to be sold to the Rwandan army), and then arranges a deal to purchase and transport 2 million rounds of 7.62 shells to rural Somalia. He concludes that, with an upfront investment of $500,000, he could turn a million dollar profit with little more than a trip to Kigali and a couple of phonecalls.

As I read the story, I realized I knew most of the terminology used, not from a close study of the issue, but from Frederick Forsyth’s classic novel, “The Dogs of War“. In the novel, Forsyth outlines in extremely specific detail the machinations necessary to mount a coup in a nation that sounds a whole lot like Equatorial Guinea. At least two failed coups in Equatorial Guinea – one in 1973 and the more recent Wonga Coup - have been linked to Forsyth’s novel. (Some have linked Forsyth to the 1973 coup, which he admits knowing about and researching, though won’t admit to charges he helped finance it.) The methods his characters used to obtain end-user certificates and buy ammunition in Eastern Europe are almost identical to those that Butler outlines almost 35 years later.

For me, either the suspiciously accurate novel or the eminently readable comic go a long way in turning a distant – though critical – concern into a real, tangible problem. It makes me wish that more journalists and activists would look for creative ways to tell these stories and make them more real to readers.

Along that line, I have to offer a shout-out to Wired’s recent coverage of Somali piracy. I think this is a stupid story to be following – it’s more spectacle than substance and doesn’t do much to help people understand why the situation in Somalia is so desperate – but a recent set of Wired stories does an excellent job of turning a distant story into a tangible one.

Noah Schactman and Scott Carney offer an interview with a Somali pirate that helps explain the economics of the trade. It’s illustrated with a video made by pirates aboard a ship they’d recently captured. The video is pretty remarkable – it’s the sort of braggadochio you and your friends might engage in had you just seized a multi-million dollar ship with the reasonable expectation that you’d be able to ransom it for millions of dollars.

But the piece de resistance is Cutthroat Capitalism, a flash game that invites you to man a small boat out of Eyl, pick likely looking targets in the Gulf of Aden, board them and negotiate ransom. I quickly picked up a cruise ship, fed my hostages, acted erraticly while on the satphone to the negotiator and collected a $4 million ransom. With buttons that let you beat or kill hostages, it’s one of the more cold-blooded simulations I’ve ever seen, but does an effective job of making it clear that piracy is deeply profitable for those involved.
This piece originally appeared in My Heart's in Accra.

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(Posted by Ethan Zuckerman in Stuff at 1:10 PM)

The Folly Of ‘Magical Solutions’ For Targeting Carbon Emissions

WorldChanging Team — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 21:02:54 +0000

By Roger A. Pielke, Jr.
Setting unattainable emissions targets is not a policy — it’s an act of wishful thinking, argues one political scientist. Instead, governments and society should focus money and attention on workable solutions for improving energy efficiency and de-carbonizing our economies.

Fifty years ago, political scientist Harold Lasswell explained that some policies are all about symbolism, with little or no impact on real-world outcomes. He called such actions “magical solutions,” explaining that “political symbolization has its catharsis functions.” Climate policy is going through exactly such a phase, in which a focus on magical solutions leaves little room for the practical.

Evidence for this claim can be found in the global reaction to the commitment made by the Japanese government last month to reduce emissions by 15 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. The announcement was met with derision. For instance, Yvo de Boer, head of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, expressed shock at Japan’s lack of ambition, stating, “I think for the first time in two-and-a-half years in this job, I don’t know what to say.” Sir David King, Britain’s former chief scientist and now director of the Smith School of Enterprise and Environment at Oxford University, singled out Japan as a country that was blocking progress toward an international deal on climate change.

Explaining what would constitute an acceptable target, de Boer explained that “the minus 25 to 40 range has become a sort of beacon” — referring to emissions reduction figures presented in the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which were highlighted in subsequent international negotiations at Bali. Perhaps this is also the magnitude of target that King had in mind when disparaging the Japanese proposal. After all, the British government has enacted a law consistent with this range, requiring emissions reductions of 34 percent below 1990 levels by 2022, which would be upped to 42 percent if the world reaches a global climate agreement in Copenhagen in December.

What is missing from the debate over targets and timetables is any conception of the realism of such proposals. If a proposal is not realistic, it is not really a policy proposal but an exercise in symbolism, a “magical solution.” Symbolism is of course an essential part of politics, but when it becomes detached from reality — or even worse, used to exclude consideration of realistic proposals — the inevitable outcome is that policies will likely fail to achieve the promised ends. This outcome is highly problematic for those who actually care about the substance of climate policy proposals.

The U.K. targets are a perfect example of what happens when symbols become disconnected from reality. To achieve a 34 percent reduction from 1990 emissions by 2022 while maintaining modest economic growth would require that the U.K. decarbonize its economy to the level of France by about 2016. In more concrete terms, Britain would have to achieve the equivalent of deploying about 30 new nuclear power plants in the next six years, just to get part way to its target. One does not need a degree in nuclear physics to conclude that is just not going to happen. Colin Challen, Member of Parliament (Labour) and chairman of its All Party Parliamentary Climate Change Group, has concluded that the U.K. targets are “well beyond our current political capacity to deliver.” Perhaps there is some consolation in the fact that the U.K. targets are symbolically strong.

The Japanese targets are not that much different from those in the U.K., requiring a rate of decarbonization of the Japanese economy by 2020 that is only one percent per year less than that implied by the U.K. target. To meet its 2020 target, Japan expects to do the following: construct nine new nuclear power plant plants and improve utilized capacity to 80 percent (from 60 percent); build about 34 new wind-power plants producing around 5 million kilowatts; install solar panels on 2.9 million homes (an increase of 2,000 percent over current levels); increase the share of newly built houses satisfying stringent insulation standards from 40 percent today to 80 percent; and increase sales of next-generation vehicles from 4 percent (2005) to 50 percent (2020).

Meeting these goals will be enormously difficult, especially because Japan has for decades been at the forefront of improving energy efficiency and has already plucked much “low hanging fruit.” Consequently, if Japan’s proposals are to be criticized, perhaps it should be because they are too ambitious rather than too weak. But when policy debate detaches from reality, up can become down in a hurry.

Political debate over climate policy is such that the facts on the ground often make little difference. Another good example of this dynamic can be found in New York Times columnist Tom Friedman’s views on the cap-and-trade bill now being considered by the U.S. Senate. Friedman recently evaluated the bill as it emerged from the House of Representatives as follows: “There is much in the House cap-and-trade energy bill that just passed that I absolutely hate. It is too weak in key areas and way too complicated in others. A simple, straightforward carbon tax would have made much more sense than this Rube Goldberg contraption. It is pathetic that we couldn’t do better. It is appalling that so much had to be given away to polluters. It stinks. It’s a mess. I detest it.”

He then concludes, “Now let’s get it passed in the Senate and make it law.”

How can Friedman come to such a conclusion based on his judgment that the legislation is a “mess”? Symbolism. Friedman explains, “Rejecting this bill would have been read in the world as America voting against the reality and urgency of climate change and would have undermined clean energy initiatives everywhere.” Friedman’s views about how the bill would be “read” help to explain why it is that climate policy has become about demonstrating one’s strong feelings about the reality and urgency of climate change and not so much about implementing policies that can actually work. A few minutes spent exploring the climate corner of the blogosphere is enough to confirm this claim.

The good news, I suppose, is that the policy process provides plenty of good examples of situations where symbolism and reality get out of kilter with one another, only to be reconciled through the messy political process. One example is the congressional response to budget deficits in the 1980s. At the time it was widely recognized that the growing budget deficits were a problem that had to be dealt with. So Congress passed legislation (Gramm-Rudman-Hollings) which mandated that projected budgets had to be balanced. And what happened? Projected budgets were balanced using rosy scenarios and accounting tricks, and the actual budget was nowhere close to being in balance. For a while the impression was given that something was being done. But when the numbers came in, this particular “magical solution” was judged a failure.

Despite the Byzantine complexity of the process, the mathematics of budgeting are not difficult. To be in balance the money coming in must equal the money going out, and these are controlled via taxes and spending. Budgets did not reach balance until Congress revisited its balanced budget legislation to focus on reconciling taxes and spending. Aided by favorable economic winds, the federal budget was balanced by the end of the 1990s.

Climate policy is in the midst of a dynamic very similar to that in budget policy in the 1980s and 1990s. Policies such as the Kyoto Protocol, the U.K. Climate Change Act, and the U.S. cap-and-trade (Waxman-Markey) bill are each “magical solutions” with considerable symbolic heft but precious little effect (actual or potential) on emissions. The poor actual or expected performance of these policies is presently rationalized in terms of the need to take the first tentative steps to put in place institutions that can eventually be focused more directly on the problem.

Emissions reduction has its own simple arithmetic. In the context of modest economic growth, emissions are reduced when energy efficiency improves and/or when energy supply is decarbonized. A direct approach to efficiency and expansion of low-carbon energy is much preferable to the indirect approach enshrined in current policies. A low carbon tax (priced as high as politically possible) could be used to raise funds to invest in technological innovation and deployment. While there are lessons to be learned from past policies (in places such as Japan on efficiency, France on nuclear power, the EU on wind and gas, and so on), the reality is that no one knows how to rapidly decarbonize a major economy or how fast decarbonization can actually take place. So there is merit in trying different approaches in different places.

Ultimately, depending on the relative success of mitigation policies, we may decide in a few decades to adopt a more brute-force approach to removing carbon directly from the atmosphere. In the meantime, however, we should take advantage of every opportunity to learn from efforts to decarbonize economic activity, with particular attention to realistic approaches and costs, such as contained in the Japanese proposal.

In contrast, policies focused on targets and timetables for emissions reductions avoid questions about the realism and costs of the steps actually needed to reduce emissions. As Stanford’s David Victor explains, “setting binding emission targets through treaties is wrongheaded because it ‘forces’ governments to do things they don’t know how to do. And that puts them in a box, from which they escape using accounting tricks (e.g., offsets) rather than real effort.” Until policies focus more directly on improving efficiency and decarbonizing supply, accounting tricks will dominate the policy response, just as occurred in budget policy.

Symbolism is of course both necessary and important in politics. But when symbolism becomes a substitute for meaningful actions, as shown by the dismissive responses to Japan’s emissions reductions proposal, then policy making runs the risk of becoming nothing more than an opportunity to bear witness to cherished values. For climate policy to actually succeed in reducing emissions, it must move beyond “magical solutions” to those that actually work. This means closing the large gap between aspirational goals and actual policy implementation. The global reaction to Japan’s climate policy proposals indicates that this implementation gap remains very large and unlikely to close any time soon.

This piece originally appeared in Yale Environment 360.

Photo credit: Flickr/Ha-Wee, Creative Commons License.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Stuff at 1:02 PM)

Can Twitter Help Us To Save Energy At Home?

WorldChanging Team — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 00:34:57 +0000

By Pete Davies

Does a display of information help us to save energy? Or will it take something more?

There's a house that tweets all of it's energy usage. And that's really just the beginning of the information it dumps onto Twitter every day. Even the mousetraps are wired into the matrix...

Residential energy use accounts for a little over 20% of US energy consumption and therefore represents a great opportunity for savings and efficiency. It's no wonder then that huge companies like Google, Microsoft and GE, together with an ever-growing list of start-ups want to help you save energy at home. If they can save you energy, they'll likely be saving you money too. And these days saving money is a big business opportunity!

We talk a lot about home energy usage with TerraPass customers and I've been thrilled to see the enthusiasm with which our customers embrace products such as the Kill A Watt and Home Powercost Monitor. But let's be honest, these kinds of accessories are for the fanatics and my hunch is most of the people that buy them replaced their bulbs with CFLs long ago -- they're probably onto the LEDs by now. These are not products for mass-adoption, more's the pity.

In reality, the American household is going to need a little more help and hand-holding. As the home energy management products and start-ups jockey for room in a crowded space, here are the four trends I see emerging:

1. Personal action, efficiency
Not much technology involved in this one, but worth mentioning all the same as there are plenty of those that believe we should all be able to realize significant savings simply by conserving our energy use. Tips abound on the internet, from the simplest (turn the lights off) to some of the more laborious (washing your air conditioner filters). The problem here of course is that if it were worth our while, we'd all be doing these things already -- but people are willing to spend those few cents for the convenience. Maybe if energy prices rise significantly that might change.

2. Spend some to save some
Whether it's covering your roof in solar panels or simply installing a programmable thermostat, there are all manner of investments we can make to improve energy consumption in our homes. Subsidizing more efficient appliances and larger-scale retrofits is a favorite of governments, especially when it creates "green jobs" in a down economy.

3. See it: know the real-time cost
I've seen a couple of different people explain this idea using a grocery store metaphor.. so I'll do my best to replicate that here. When you go to the grocery store, you push the cart around, checking the prices of items as you go. If there's something you want to buy, you pick it up and put it in the cart. When you're done you go the checkout and pay for everything in your cart.

So far, so good. But how is this relevant to energy? Well when you buy energy from your utility the experience is totally different. You use the energy through the month and a few weeks later you get the bill for everything you've used. It's as if you've had no prices on any of the items in the grocery store and once you get to checkout, you must buy everything in your cart.

Well there are a number of companies working on being able to tell you the real-time prices. It requires varying degrees of technology and the co-operation of utilities. The end goal is that if you know how much energy you're using in real-time (and how much it's costing you), you're likely to use less.

4. Automation
Strange confession time. When I was little I used to think it would be very cool to have a huge panel of switches by my bed. From here, I'd be able to control everything in the house: lights, faucets, tv, radios; I could even turn the dishwasher off when it was keeping me awake at night.

A few decades later and this is becoming something of a reality. Instead of a panel of switches it's a touchscreen (or your iPhone perhaps) from which you can control various devices around the house. You may even want to program them so they come on when electricity is cheapest.

In it's most advanced forms, this technology will allow your utility to control some of the biggest power-hogs you have and smooth the peaks of the local electricity demand, saving them a considerable amount of money, and generously handing a little of those savings on to you too.

--

So what's going to work? And how long will it take? Which of these do you think is most likely to influence energy savings in your home? And at what cost?

This piece originally appeared in The TerraPass Footprint.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Stuff at 4:34 PM)

Can Twitter Help Us To Save Energy At Home?

WorldChanging Team — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 00:34:57 +0000

By Pete Davies

Does a display of information help us to save energy? Or will it take something more?

There's a house that tweets all of it's energy usage. And that's really just the beginning of the information it dumps onto Twitter every day. Even the mousetraps are wired into the matrix...

Residential energy use accounts for a little over 20% of US energy consumption and therefore represents a great opportunity for savings and efficiency. It's no wonder then that huge companies like Google, Microsoft and GE, together with an ever-growing list of start-ups want to help you save energy at home. If they can save you energy, they'll likely be saving you money too. And these days saving money is a big business opportunity!

We talk a lot about home energy usage with TerraPass customers and I've been thrilled to see the enthusiasm with which our customers embrace products such as the Kill A Watt and Home Powercost Monitor. But let's be honest, these kinds of accessories are for the fanatics and my hunch is most of the people that buy them replaced their bulbs with CFLs long ago -- they're probably onto the LEDs by now. These are not products for mass-adoption, more's the pity.

In reality, the American household is going to need a little more help and hand-holding. As the home energy management products and start-ups jockey for room in a crowded space, here are the four trends I see emerging:

1. Personal action, efficiency
Not much technology involved in this one, but worth mentioning all the same as there are plenty of those that believe we should all be able to realize significant savings simply by conserving our energy use. Tips abound on the internet, from the simplest (turn the lights off) to some of the more laborious (washing your air conditioner filters). The problem here of course is that if it were worth our while, we'd all be doing these things already -- but people are willing to spend those few cents for the convenience. Maybe if energy prices rise significantly that might change.

2. Spend some to save some
Whether it's covering your roof in solar panels or simply installing a programmable thermostat, there are all manner of investments we can make to improve energy consumption in our homes. Subsidizing more efficient appliances and larger-scale retrofits is a favorite of governments, especially when it creates "green jobs" in a down economy.

3. See it: know the real-time cost
I've seen a couple of different people explain this idea using a grocery store metaphor.. so I'll do my best to replicate that here. When you go to the grocery store, you push the cart around, checking the prices of items as you go. If there's something you want to buy, you pick it up and put it in the cart. When you're done you go the checkout and pay for everything in your cart.

So far, so good. But how is this relevant to energy? Well when you buy energy from your utility the experience is totally different. You use the energy through the month and a few weeks later you get the bill for everything you've used. It's as if you've had no prices on any of the items in the grocery store and once you get to checkout, you must buy everything in your cart.

Well there are a number of companies working on being able to tell you the real-time prices. It requires varying degrees of technology and the co-operation of utilities. The end goal is that if you know how much energy you're using in real-time (and how much it's costing you), you're likely to use less.

4. Automation
Strange confession time. When I was little I used to think it would be very cool to have a huge panel of switches by my bed. From here, I'd be able to control everything in the house: lights, faucets, tv, radios; I could even turn the dishwasher off when it was keeping me awake at night.

A few decades later and this is becoming something of a reality. Instead of a panel of switches it's a touchscreen (or your iPhone perhaps) from which you can control various devices around the house. You may even want to program them so they come on when electricity is cheapest.

In it's most advanced forms, this technology will allow your utility to control some of the biggest power-hogs you have and smooth the peaks of the local electricity demand, saving them a considerable amount of money, and generously handing a little of those savings on to you too.

--

So what's going to work? And how long will it take? Which of these do you think is most likely to influence energy savings in your home? And at what cost?

This piece originally appeared in The TerraPass Footprint.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Stuff at 4:34 PM)

Seasonal Fruit And Veg On Your iPhone

WorldChanging Team — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 21:45:00 +0000

By Pete Davies

No more excuses for eating asparagus in September

Locally produced food isn’t necessarily better for the environment. But seasonal and local fruit or vegetables probably are. And while your grocery store may tell you where the food was grown, it probably doesn’t tell you how much energy went into growing it.

As a general rule, something that is in season will take much less energy to produce than something out of season. Artificial light and heat aren’t necessary, and hopefully less water is used also.

Many of us here are big iPhone fans (how did you guess?) so I was pleased to discover that the app Seasons ($1.99) now has data for the United States. Tell it where you live and it will tell you what’s in season and whether or not it is grown locally.

If you’ve used the app or know of something similar, then let us know in the comments below!

This piece originally appeared in theTerra Pass Footprint.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Stuff at 1:45 PM)

Seasonal Fruit And Veg On Your iPhone

WorldChanging Team — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 21:45:00 +0000

By Pete Davies

No more excuses for eating asparagus in September

Locally produced food isn’t necessarily better for the environment. But seasonal and local fruit or vegetables probably are. And while your grocery store may tell you where the food was grown, it probably doesn’t tell you how much energy went into growing it.

As a general rule, something that is in season will take much less energy to produce than something out of season. Artificial light and heat aren’t necessary, and hopefully less water is used also.

Many of us here are big iPhone fans (how did you guess?) so I was pleased to discover that the app Seasons ($1.99) now has data for the United States. Tell it where you live and it will tell you what’s in season and whether or not it is grown locally.

If you’ve used the app or know of something similar, then let us know in the comments below!

This piece originally appeared in theTerra Pass Footprint.

Help us change the world - DONATE NOW!

(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Stuff at 1:45 PM)