We’re having lots of great conversations internally about the strategic role of 50 Miles Street to NESEA.
For the uninitiated, “50 Miles Street” is the address of the NESEA building. Unlike many nonprofit organizations of our size, NESEA actually owns its building. We have owned it since the mid-1990s, as a result of an agreement with the City of Greenfield, MA, which also led to NESEA creating the Greenfield Energy Park.
From what I gather, people have been talking about making the building a showcase for energy efficiency and renewables for as long as we’ve owned it! Several members have initiated studies and made proposals as to what we should do, and in the mid-1990’s, the board even entertained completing a capital campaign to raise funds for a retrofit of the “Northeast Sustainability Center” at NESEA.
Lately, a number of NESEA members have again taken up the torch! Last fall, Nancy Hazard arranged for a comprehensive energy efficiency audit of the building, and since then NESEA board member John (JJ) Jacobson has completed a more comprehensive review, including:
• Reviewing all the previous studies of the building
• Talking with the city planner’s office and local businesses about anticipated economic development in Greenfield
• Reviewing the financials, including our utility and building maintenance expenses, our rental income vs. market rates, and other related information.
JJ is planning to present his findings to the NESEA board later this fall. The next step will likely be to establish a NESEA work group, comprised of board members, NESEA members and staff, to develop (and hopefully ultimately implement!) a strategic plan for the building.
So what’s your feedback. What would a Northeast Sustainability Center mean to you?
Name: Jennifer
Email:
The other day I had the pleasure of speaking with Michael Nerrie, the builder and owner of a passive solar house in Walpole, New Hampshire. Mr. Nerrie’s home was recently selected for the cover of the Fall 2010 edition of the Northeast Sun. Below is a brief transcription of our conversation.
Michelle Rose: What inspired you to build a passive solar house?
Michael Nerrie: Coming from the ’70s, solar was big. The White House had a solar hot water heater and there were some good incentives. Alternative energy was in then but PV was hardly used at all.
I built my own solar hot water heater. I was a builder and then, for 25 years it just went off the radar. I was very frustrated in the ’70s when the alternative energy thing fell apart.
I was inspired by neighbors who had a solar hot water heater and then, later, it was the same thing with PV. It makes a big difference when you see it done by others; it’s often easier to do than you think.
Michelle Rose: How has your home changed since you originally built it?
Michael Nerrie: It looks quite a bit different than it did when I first built it. In the ’70s, passive solar was just getting started . . . the guidelines were different and not well established. I had way more glass than I needed. In the mid-’90s I cut down on the amount of glass that I was using.
Michelle Rose: What are some of the benefits that you have noticed?
Michael Nerrie: We get half of our heat from the sun and, now that we have PV, we get half of our electricity from the sun as well. So, now we have half of the overall heating and electricity costs.
Michelle Rose: What is your favorite part of owning a sustainable house?
Michael Nerrie: Sitting in the sunspace in our hammock on a zero-degree day wearing next to nothing, reading a book. It’s zero degrees out and 85 in the sun. It’s like having a tropical vacation on every sunny day of the year.
Michael Nerrie is both an organizer and a host for the 2010 Green Buildings Open House tour, which takes place this year on Saturday, October 2nd. For more information on the tour or to see specific information on Mr. Nerrie’s sustainable home, please visit http://www.nesea.org/greenbuildings.
This will be my last communication for a week or two, as I’m headed off to vacation in Madison, Wisconsin with my family on Friday. But I wanted to fill you in on what the staff and I have been working on over the past few weeks.
The short story is that we’ve been operating at a fever pitch this summer, and finding opportunities to collaborate, both internally and with external partners, almost everywhere we look.
Here’s a snapshot of what’s underway:
• We have developed a media tool kit so that we can better equip our Green Buildings Open House organizers and hosts to promote the tour, being held on October 2nd;
• Our Education Department is working closely with the BuildingEnergy planning committee on our first Educators’ Summit, to be held at BE11;
• We are partnering with other organizations (Affordable Comfort, Green Roundtable/NEXUS, the BSA, and others) to spread the word about our programs and better serve our members;
• We are more clearly defining NESEA’s brand so you’ll begin to recognize us more readily. We’ve been working with Mitch Anthony and Susan Lapointe on our ads, website, and other promotional materials to create a cleaner, more consistent look and feel for the NESEA tribe.
• We’re looking closely at the relationship of NESEA members and chapters to NESEA central – trying to envision what it might look like if we were building it from scratch, and identifying ways to move toward that ideal state.
• And there’s more . . . much more!
I’m happy to share any of these developments with you if you’d like to contact me directly after August 8th. Until then, I’ll be “off the grid!” — Jennifer
Name: Jennifer
Email:
The world is watching in disbelief as we blunder through the oil spill cleanup in the Gulf of Mexico. Lawrence Solomon’s “Avertible Catastrophe” in the Canadian publication Financial Post, describes the most ridiculous kind of bureaucratic inflexibility imaginable in the reasons used to reject effective technology and help from the Netherlands and other countries in cleaning up the spill and protecting the Gulf Coast.
“Three days after the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico began on April 20, the Netherlands offered the U.S. government ships equipped to handle a major spill, one much larger than the BP spill that then appeared to be underway. “Our system can handle 400 cubic metres per hour,” Weird Koops, the chairman of Spill Response Group Holland, told Radio Netherlands Worldwide, giving each Dutch ship more cleanup capacity than all the ships that the U.S. was then employing in the Gulf to combat the spill.”………..
“Why does neither the U.S. government nor U.S. energy companies have on hand the cleanup technology available in Europe? Ironically, the superior European technology runs afoul of U.S. environmental rules. The voracious Dutch vessels, for example, continuously suck up vast quantities of oily water, extract most of the oil and then spit overboard vast quantities of nearly oil-free water. Nearly oil-free isn’t good enough for the U.S. regulators, who have a standard of 15 parts per million — if water isn’t at least 99.9985% pure, it may not be returned to the Gulf of Mexico.”
In Solomon’s article there are more disheartening details of well intentioned bureacrats turning the accident in the gulf into a far worse disaster than it should have become.
“According to Floris Van Hovell, a spokesman for the Dutch embassy in Washington, Dutch dredging ships could complete the berms in Louisiana twice as fast as the U.S. companies awarded the work. “Given the fact that there is so much oil on a daily basis coming in, you do not have that much time to protect the marshlands,” he says, perplexed that the U.S. government could be so focussed on side issues with the entire Gulf Coast hanging in the balance.”
As Logan Penza suggests at The Moderate Voice: “Seriously, You can’t make this stuff up”
Yet some folks still wonder why Americans are increasingly skeptical of ever expanding bureaucratic regulatory solutions and their inevitable unintended consequences.
Name: Fred
Email:
Web Site: http://www.heartwoodsolutions.com
Bio: Fred Unger was first invited to speak at a NESEA conference in 1979, later served on the Board, served as Treasurer and chaired the 2003 Building Energy Conference. He has worked for over three decades in green building, building envelope engineering, real estate development and renewable energy project development. He has recently started blogging at http://emergingconsensus.wordpress.com.
My favorite blogger, Seth Godin, wrote yesterday about winning. He started with the toddler’s approach to winning – getting what you want, now. But he went on to describe more nuanced ways of defining a “win.,” asking instead, “What happens when you define a win as getting closer to someone who wants the same thing? Or when you define it as improvement over time? Or in creating trust?”
These three questions set the framework for what could have been a very difficult meeting yesterday.
NESEA staff had a visit from representatives of our New Hampshire Chapter, NHSEA, yesterday. Madeline McElaney, Program and Outreach Coordinator, and Christa Koehler, Vice President of the Board of Directors met with me and the rest of the NESEA staff for almost two hours. We all knew at the outset that this might be a challenging meeting. The New Hampshire Sustainable Energy Association (NHSEA) has for years been doing wonderful, compelling work (both education and advocacy) on behalf of residential consumers and business owners in New Hampshire who wish to learn more about sustainable energy. Their mission and their focus have been different than NESEA’s, as we have devoted most of our energy toward supporting professionals in sustainable energy in their networking and professional development. This difference in mission and in strategic direction has been a source of concern for NHSEA for several years – to the point that they are actively considering whether affiliation with NESEA still makes sense.
Madeline and Christa also shared with us several concerns about the current NESEA membership and chapter structure – some of them relating to the revenue chapters receive from NESEA for each new member, and others relating to the “contract” between NESEA and its chapters, and the lack of clarity about what is expected of the chapters and what they can expect in return.
These are pressing issues to NHSEA, and they want to see progress on them . . . now!
Clearly this wasn’t a meeting where either party could expect a “toddler win.” Everyone around the table understood that. Too many complex issues requiring the consent of too many stakeholders who weren’t even in the room. Yet I would absolutely classify this meeting as a “win” on the basis of the other three, more nuanced questions.
Getting closer to someone who wants the same thing: We shared information and experiences with respect to the Green Buildings Open House program and identified ways we could work together more effectively immediately on that program so that it reaches more consumers in New Hampshire. We also raised the possibility of working together on a pilot for the program to increase its visibility and its financial viability over time – a pilot that might serve as a model for other NESEA chapters.
Improvement over time: We committed to work together to address the concerns they raised with respect to membership, in the context of the NESEA Membership/Chapters Advisory Committee. This committee will be addressing each of the issues raised by NHSEA within the next six months or so – but will do so in the context of the “whole system” that is NESEA. Madeline will serve as a member of that committee, which will make final recommendations to the NESEA board with respect to membership structure and benefits, revenue share with chapters, what will be expected of chapters and what NESEA will provide in return.
Creating trust: This one’s probably pretty obvious. It spoke volumes to us that Madeline and a member of her board cared enough to visit us, to sit with us face-to-face, to tell us the hard truth, and to give us the opportunity to work together to resolve the issues.
So are we all ready to sing Kumbaya? Not quite yet. As I shared with Madeline and Christa, I can’t guarantee the outcome on some of the items most important to them – those relating to membership and revenue. These are decisions that the NESEA board will ultimately make. Nor can I guarantee that our missions will continue to align sufficiently that NHSEA will find value in affiliating with NESEA. What I can guarantee is this:
• NESEA will try to be as transparent as possible throughout this process;
• The door will remain open for better communication between the chapters;
• They will have a seat at the table as we reformulate the membership/chapter structure; and
• We will continue to try to find ways to support them, whether they decide to remain a chapter or not.
I hope it’s enough for now, and I look forward to working together to sort out the rest.
Name: Jennifer
Email:
Wanted to bring you all up to speed on what’s happening with the NESEA strategic plan, and catch those of you up who might not even be aware that we have a strategic plan!
The board adopted a new strategic plan in May. The plan sets forth a number of priorities for the coming year. But rather than bore you with you a dry list of bullet points relating to communications and branding, strategic partnerships, membership and chapters, metrics, etc., I thought I’d bring you up to speed on a few of the things I’ve been working on in conjunction with the plan that excite me most.
First, we’re breaking down silos and building bridges. Such cliché language, such over-used expressions. What they mean in our case is that we’re looking at NESEA as a solar system, and BuildingEnergy is the sun. For many people, BE is NESEA and vice versa. So part of what we are doing is reevaluating all of our programs with respect to what works well with BE: great opportunities to network with and learn from a multidisciplinary group of professionals, a “whole systems” approach to energy efficiency and renewable energy, the opportunity to share the results of proven case studies . . . the list goes on. We’re trying to add a bit more of the BE vibe to our other programs, and bringing our other programs to BE, both figuratively and literally. For example, this year we’ll hold our first educators summit at BuildingEnergy. For years we’ve been offering excellent teacher training programs on energy efficiency and renewable energy, but we’ve not created opportunities for educators to network and learn from and with other NESEA professionals. This year, we’ll have educators attend sessions geared toward K-12 science curriculum, but will also invite them to take in a few of the traditional BuildingEnergy sessions. We’ve known for years that teachers involved in our K-12 training programs are often the strongest advocates for introducing energy efficiency and renewables into our schools. Let’s equip them with the tools and the passion to be evangelists for a larger audience of students and their families as well.
Second, on the sponsorship front: we looked at NESEA’s sponsorship packages and found ourselves really uninspired. We also did a lot of research into the sponsorship packages that other, like-minded organizations were offering and were similarly unimpressed. Then it struck us that we’d never really gone out asked our sponsors what they wanted from their partnership with NESEA. Duh! So one of the first things we’ve done is to schedule meetings with a few of our key sponsors to hear from them. We held our first meeting this week with BuildingEnergy sponsor Conservation Services Group. They gave us lots of ideas of really do-able things that would add value for them. And more than anything else, I think they were delighted just to be asked. Just this meeting set us apart from the other 100+ organizations and/or trade shows that seek money from them each year! A great opportunity to build the relationship and learn more about the needs of some of our key members in the process. We’ve got a few more of these meetings set with other sponsors over the next few months, which I’m hoping will be equally valuable.
Third, (and last for now), on the communications and branding front: We know we need to be doing a lot more with social media to keep our members in the loop and to attract potential newbies as well. This blog post is one of my first personal efforts in that regard . . . and I have to say it’s a bit terrifying to try to speak in my own voice, and to figure out what’s relevant to share. I’d love for this forum to be a dialogue . . . but then again, I don’t want anyone to disagree with me . . . ever. (Just kidding, of course – working with this highly engaged and opinionated group sometimes requires me to have a thick skin!) I’m going to do my best to keep you all updated, both here and through our enewsletter, but if a few weeks go by without you hearing from me, feel free to jiggle the handle. You can always reach me at jmarrapese@nesea.org. Thanks!
Name: Jennifer
Email:
The media page for the Price Carbon Campaign has several great videos available that explain from a wide variety of perspectives why a simple clear revenue neutral carbon tax is the best solution to climate, economic, environmental, employment and national security challenges that are all interrelated. Another important video is “The Huge Mistake” by attorneys Laurie Williams and Allan Zabel which explains clearly why the solutions generally favored in Washington really are a huge mistake. Then there is this good summary of the issues from a forum sponsored by The Carbon Tax Center, Climate Crisis Coalition, Citizens Climate Lobby, Friends Committee on National legislation, Friends of the Earth, Progressive Democrats of America, The Clean Coalition, We Act for Environmental Justice and the Price Carbon Campaign.
For those who care seriously about these issues and do not want to see wasteful and ineffective solutions substituted for clear simple and real solutions, spending an hour or so watching these videos could be a great investment of your time. It would also be great for every member of the senate to watch them all prior to taking a position on legislation.
These videos provide compelling video regarding the fundamental problems of the convoluted corporate welfare schemes like the Kerry Graham Lieberman bill now making its way to the senate. With clearly far better bipartisan bills already drafted, like the Cantwell Collins “Carbon Limits and Energy for America’s Renewal (CLEAR) Act” and the Inglis Flake Lipinski “Raise Wages, Cut Carbon Act”, we can only hope that these clear messages of common sense have more impact than all the special interest lobbyists that generally drive policy in Washington.
Name: Fred
Email:
Web Site: http://www.heartwoodsolutions.com
Bio: Fred Unger was first invited to speak at a NESEA conference in 1979, later served on the Board, served as Treasurer and chaired the 2003 Building Energy Conference. He has worked for over three decades in green building, building envelope engineering, real estate development and renewable energy project development. He has recently started blogging at http://emergingconsensus.wordpress.com.
To assure sustainable prosperity, we need the market place to account fairly for the long legacy of subsidy and economic externalities that distort energy markets in favor of incumbent polluting industries. We need to establish public policies that enable such accounting in a direct, transparent and dependable manner.
I have long been an advocate of a tax on incumbent energy resources. There are compelling national security, economic and environmental reasons for a revenue neutral tax that shifts taxation away from productive activities like creating jobs, and instead taxes polluting, non-renewable energy resources. Such a strategy could win broad based support across the political spectrum.
But I believe the focus on climate change, favored by many in the environmental movement, is a significant liability in the political effort to create sensible energy policy. Recently, my apprehensions regarding such focus have been proven well founded.
When it comes to addressing climate issues through public policy, there are a wide spectrum of views which, while not supporting the recent policy orthodoxy of climate politics, are not based on denial of the issue or its potential ramifications. Many people recognize that current politically favored solutions to climate change would not only be ineffective, but could potentially create worse problems then those they are intended to address.
Those advocating for complex convoluted public policy responses to the threats of climate change have seen serious setbacks over the last few months, not the least of which was the failure of the Copenhagen conference to achieve any meaningful results.
It is also becoming more clear recently that the science of climate change is being heavily influenced by political agendas. But contrary to the concerns of many in the environmental movement that it is “right wing” interests which are corrupting the science, it appears that it is largely those pushing an agenda of climate change alarmism who have had the most significant influence on the scientific reporting. Crony capitalists have been more than willing to go along as the politics of climate have been co-opted by Wall Street interests and others who stand to benefit immensely from the convoluted economic distortions embedded in solutions to climate change now favored by many politicians.
Especially since the release of e-mails and other documents from the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit in November, the press and public have become more skeptical on the issue and there have been increasing numbers of questions raised regarding the quality of the UN sponsored 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report on Climate Change.
Respected conventional news outlets of all political persuasions, many of which have in the past been supportive of an aggressive climate policy agenda, have been publishing articles and editorials with titles like: Climate change: this is the worst scientific scandal of our generation , ClimateGate: Was Data Faked? , How Climate-Change Fanatics Corrupted Science , The Death of Global Warming , UN wrongly linked global warming to natural disasters , Conning the climate: Inside the carbon-trading shell game , Alarmists’ credibility melting , How Wrong Is The IPCC? and What happened to global warming?
Though here in the US the traditional press has been less prone to cover the story than in Britain, Australia, India and elsewhere, there is increasing controversy regarding many of the findings in the 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, which won its authors the Nobel Prize along with Al Gore. Of most concern in the report are elements of the Summary for Policy Makers.
It has been reported than when asked in advance of publication to review the draft of the summary for Chapter 9 which attributes global warming to man made causes, Dr. Andrew A. Lacis, a climate researcher at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies had this to say:
“There is no scientific merit to be found in the Executive Summary. The presentation sounds like something put together by Greenpeace activists and their legal department. The points being made are made arbitrarily with legal sounding caveats without having established any foundation or basis in fact. The Executive Summary seems to be a political statement that is only designed to annoy greenhouse skeptics. Wasn’t the IPCC Assessment Report intended to be a scientific document that would merit solid backing from the climate science community – instead of forcing many climate scientists into having to agree with greenhouse skeptic criticisms that this is indeed a report with a clear and obvious political agenda. Attribution can not happen until understanding has been clearly demonstrated. Once the facts of climate change have been established and understood, attribution will become self-evident to all. The Executive Summary as it stands is beyond redemption and should simply be deleted.”
Dr. Lacis suggestion was unfortunately rejected. It is now coming out that significant portions of the IPCC report were not based on peer reviewed science at all and several findings of the report have been confirmed to be erroneous.
Public support for action on climate change is waning. A study from Yale University offers an interesting analysis of attitudes on the subject. The Pew Research Center shows climate change being a very low public priority.
A good friend of mine and passionate advocate for climate change policy action suggested that:
“The surveys and editorials are interesting reflections of public opinion, but they don’t undermine the science. Don’t forget that a little over half of Americans don’t believe in evolution either.”
But contrary to Al Gore’s proclamations and the views of many people I respect, the science is not settled. Some evidence of that is the Petition Project, which claims the signatures of 31,486 American scientists who have all endorsed a petition that states:
“There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.”
Dr. Judith Curry, the Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology recently wrote:
“No one really believes that the “science is settled” or that “the debate is over.” Scientists and others that say this seem to want to advance a particular agenda. There is nothing more detrimental to public trust than such statements.”
Personally I feel absolutely certain that humans must be having some influence on climate, just based on the scale of influence that 6.8 billion people have on everything on the planet. Very few people would disagree with that premise. But clarifying how the many human and natural factors impacting climate will interact, how those factors will manifest themselves in complex climate systems, how significant our human influence will be and whether changes will have positive or negative impacts on agriculture and other critical aspects of human society, are all determinations that unfortunately are outside any clear understanding or real consensus in the scientific community at this time.
Perhaps most significant of the recent clarifications regarding the science of climate change has been the BBC interview with Phil Jones, who was the director of the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit.
When asked: Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically significant global warming: Dr. Jones answered a qualified “yes”. In details supporting his answers, he showed that the warming trend from 1995 to 2009 of 0.12 degrees centigrade per decade is matched by the cooling trend of 2002 through 2009 of -0.12 degrees centigrade per decade.
In discussing the warming periods:1860-1880, 1910-1940, 1975-1998 and 1975-2009 Dr Jones states clearly that:
“the warming rates for all 4 periods are similar and not statistically significantly different from each other.”
When asked : when scientists say the debate on climate change is over, what exactly do they mean – and what don’t they mean? Dr. Jones answered:
“It would be supposition on my behalf to know whether all scientists who say the debate is over are saying that for the same reason. I don’t believe the vast majority of climate scientists think this. This is not my view. There is still much that needs to be undertaken to reduce uncertainties, not just for the future, but for the instrumental (and especially the palaeoclimatic) past as well.”
His answer on the so called Medieval Warming Period from 800–1300 AD makes clear that current levels of scientific understanding of historic climate data can’t determine conclusively if warming trends since the industrial revolution are unique or unusual.
Recently, Tom Ward, the publisher of the Valley Breeze, a local newspaper here in Rhode Island, published an editorial entitled Inconvenient truth. In it, he suggested that:
“Climate change, formerly known as ‘global warming,’ is a fraud. The science is junk.”
One member of an environmental organization I am involved with issued a call to respond suggesting:
“Some might say its hopeless to answer such extreme positions, but the far right-wing repeats similar stuff every day on cable, talk radio and the like.”
I pointed out to the group that while his rhetoric is harsh, the important conclusion of his editorial is something we can all largely support when Mr. Ward suggests:
“As Americans, we must embrace energy conservation in the short term, and generate more home-grown nuclear, natural gas and wind power in the longer term, to keep our money here and create tens of thousands of well-paying jobs. With those goals achieved, we can power our cars and trucks with U.S.-made electricity and natural gas, and stop sending $800 billion a year overseas, money that funds our enemies.”
While I strongly disagree with Mr. Ward regarding nuclear power (a subject for another posting), I fully agree with him on conservation, wind energy and on using natural gas as the critical transition fuel on our way to a clean energy future.
If the environmental community embraced the energy independence, national security, economic development, employment and balance of trade arguments that Mr. Ward champions, we could be much further along in addressing the challenges of climate change than we are today. Instead of condemning them, we should be reaching out to potential strong policy allies like Mr. Ward who, like most Americans, would favor rational energy policy.
As I have suggested here before, everything that Mr. Ward argues for could be achieved through a Pigouvian tax on non-renewable energy resources. That solution would actually be effective in directly and immediately curbing carbon dioxide emissions, unlike the leading solutions being pushed in Congress. If we all embraced the idea that such tax should be 100% revenue neutral, offsetting payroll taxes and income taxes that discourage job creation and working, Americans of all political persuasions would support such solutions as prudent economic, jobs and tax policy.
It is not smart politics to be looking for enemies among our potential friends. Rather than blaming the “right wing” or “a well-funded disinformation machine” for the lack of progress, we should take responsibility for the narrow partisan political strategy of the environmental community on these issues.
If the climate change rhetoric from the environmental community were less extreme, it wouldn’t provide such tempting targets for ridicule and harsh criticism and we wouldn’t see the backlash we have. We don’t need to blow the scariest possible outcomes for climate change out of proportion in order to gain broad based political support for effective measures to curb carbon emissions. In fact, overblown climate rhetoric from the environmental community has significantly set back political prospects for sensible energy and climate policy.
The IPCC has done significant disservice to those concerned with climate change by becoming an imprudent advocate rather than the professional scientific organization that it was chartered to be.
Environmental scientist, James Lovelock is the author of the original “Gaia Hypothesis”, the theory of how the earth’s interrelated feedback mechanisms act as an integrated single organism. He has been described as “The Prophet of Climate Change” . He offers some important perspective:
“I think you have to accept that the skeptics have kept us sane — some of them, anyway. They have been a breath of fresh air. They have kept us from regarding the science of climate change as a religion. It had gone too far that way. There is a role for skeptics in science. They shouldn’t be brushed aside. It is clear that the angel side wasn’t without sin.”
Phil Jones, Andrew Lacis, Judith Curry, James Lovelock and other reputable climate scientists have come to realize that it is best to clearly and honestly present known facts along with the uncertainties surrounding this very complex science. Its about time the rest the environmental community does too. We should accept the political reality that with current levels of actual scientific understanding and consensus, most rational people would be reluctant to totally transform the world economy or create the worlds largest derivatives game for Wall Street in convoluted schemes like Cap, Trade and Offset.
I expect that acknowledging the scientific uncertainties regarding the long held beliefs of many of my friends in the environmental movement may result in some calling my integrity and intentions into question. The best answer I can offer them is that unlike those supporting ineffective convoluted answers currently favored in Washington, I am serious enough in my concern on these issues to advocate for policy solutions like H.R. 2380, The Raise Wages, Cut Carbon Act that puts an immediate, real and dependable price on carbon emissions. That bipartisan legislation would also address our economic and unemployment problems as well as our energy and environmental concerns and it wouldn’t add a penny to our monstrous federal debt. That’s the kind of solution the vast majority of Americans would support and that credible politicians should also support if they are really more serious about solving problems than they are about handing out pork to their special interest benefactors.
All the reasons Tom Ward cites in encouraging our nation to move to a clean energy economy have been more than adequate inspiration to spend my career doing green building and renewable energy work for the last three decades. Terrorism funded by our exported petro-dollars, pollution, the economic mess our oil dependency has helped cause, the war in Iraq and our other military adventures to secure oil supplies, and all the other symptoms of our fossil fuel dependency are plenty of inspiration for good policy.
Effective public policy response to climate change and all those other challenges would be clear, simple and easily understandable by everyone so that everyone participating in the economy can anticipate impacts and respond in rational ways. All these inter-related issues are too important for the typical corrupt political horse trading between politicians and lobbyists we have come to expect from Washington. We need real leadership at the grass roots level advocating for sensible policy.
Rational climate policy wouldn’t be based on adding vast new convoluted complexities to the economy that are easily vulnerable to the distortions of Wall Street’s financial engineering manipulations. Nor would they be based on legislators and bureaucrats anointing winners and losers in the economy. Instead we need the kind of policy that directly puts a real and dependable price on the “economic externalities” that are currently hidden subsidies for incumbent energy industries – a revenue neutral carbon tax.
Its far past time for everyone concerned with climate change to seek out alliances around sensible energy policy by focusing on the issues that all Americans can readily agree on. We should align our political agenda with those who are more concerned with other issues like the economy, jobs, trade deficits, national security, terrorism and our government’s unsustainable ballooning levels of debt and unfunded liabilities. Effective solutions to climate concerns can also address all those issues and should be politically framed to do so in a manner that appeals across traditional political boundaries. This shouldn’t be a partisan or politically divisive issue. We need a broad political coalition which will only be achieved by being far less dogmatic about our politics.
The most prudent and sensible advice I have seen regarding the politics of climate policy is from Mother Jones magazine, which quotes a perhaps unexpected ally, Republican pollster Frank Luntz:
“It doesn’t matter whether you call it climate change or global warming,” he said. “The public believes it’s happening, and they believe that humans are playing a part in it.” In fact, Luntz warned that if Republicans continue to dispute climate science it could hurt them politically. Instead, he said, the GOP should be engaging in the debate over how to solve America’s energy problems……….
Luntz suggests less talk of dying polar bears and more emphasis on how legislation will create jobs, make the planet healthier and decrease US dependence on foreign oil. Advocates should emphasize words like “cleaner,” “healthier,” and “safer”; scrap “green jobs” in favor of “American jobs,” and ditch terms like “sustainability” and “carbon neutral” altogether. “It doesn’t matter if there is or isn’t climate change,” he said. “It’s still in America’s best interest to develop new sources of energy that are clean, reliable, efficient and safe.”
Luntz’s polling suggests The First Rule of Fighting Climate Change: Don’t Talk About Climate Change.
Name: Fred
Email:
Web Site: http://www.heartwoodsolutions.com
Bio: Fred Unger was first invited to speak at a NESEA conference in 1979, later served on the Board, served as Treasurer and chaired the 2003 Building Energy Conference. He has worked for over three decades in green building, building envelope engineering, real estate development and renewable energy project development. He has recently started blogging at http://emergingconsensus.wordpress.com.
In the spring 2010 issue of the Northeast Sun, we published an article/compilation of interviews with 13 young NESEA members, exploring what they find valuable about NESEA, and how we can make the organization relevant to those under 40. Space constraints prevented us from publishing each interview in full, but the content from these interviews was so rich that we wanted you to be able to read them. What follows is the full interview with Caroline Petrovick, 28, a project manager at Coldham and Hartman.
Caroline Petrovick completed her undergraduate degree in film at Yale, and worked on commercials and independent films as a set designer and prop master for a few years in New York, and for an architecture firm in Boston for a year before moving back to Amherst and returning to school for her Masters of Architecture degree at UMass Amherst. This year she is helping to coordinate the Public Forum at BE10. She is also involved with NESEA Night, helping to get the Solar Decathlon teams to the conference. “I’m hoping we can make NESEA Night a more inclusive event this year, and create better opportunities for younger people to meet people who have been involved with NESEA for a long time.”
NESEA: How did you become involved in NESEA and what inspired you to become involved?
Caroline Petrovick: I got involved through our office. Bruce (Coldham) and Tom (Hartman) are very involved with the BE conference. I started by contacting presenters before the conference to help coordinate their presentations for online access. I’ve volunteered at the conference, both as a general volunteer and session chair. I’ve also helped with the Public Forum.
This year I’m involved with NESEA Night, helping to get the Solar Decathlon teams to the conference. I’m hoping we can make NESEA Night a more inclusive event this year, and create better opportunities for younger people to meet people who have been involved with NESEA for a long time.
NESEA: How are you currently involved with NESEA?
Caroline Petrovick: This year, our office is coordinating the Public Forum, which I feel is always one of the most important parts of the conference. The Public Forum is something I really enjoy because it draws in a lot of people who might otherwise be intimidated or be unable to afford the conference and gets them involved. It’s also a really exciting to see who will be speaking at the Public Forum, as it draws some pretty big names.
NESEA: Are you currently active in one of the NESEA chapters? Which one and how?
Caroline Petrovick: No. I live in Worcester and commute out here to Amherst. There’s not really a NESEA chapter in central Massachusetts. I’d be interested in helping to set one up or to be involved in a Central MA chapter.
NESEA: What do you value most about NESEA?
Caroline Petrovick: I really value the opportunity to meet different people in the field that aren’t architects, the BE Conference, and the opportunity to network and meet people. It’s helpful to me to hear the perspective of an engineer or a builder, to broaden my perspective as an architect.
NESEA: What other professional and/or networking organizations do you belong to? Are there things NESEA can learn about the way they operate? Any examples?
Caroline Petrovick: Our office is involved in Deep Energy Tribe, a small network of different professionals who share information and advice about retrofits and building science. One of the things that makes it work so well is that it’s a very small circle of experts. Because of the size, there’s an element of trust in sharing information. We use basecamp to organize our discussion and our work together.
I’m also a member of NEWIEE – New England Women in Energy and the Environment. The first meeting I attended was last year, at BE09. That’s a group of professional women mostly in public relations, government, and nonprofit. I think our firm may be the only member firm actually involved in building. I’ve really enjoyed the networking opportunities that NEWIEE provides.
For both of these organizations, the main means of communication is via social networking sites. More outreach through online social networking would be very valuable to me for NESEA.
NESEA: What things, specifically, should NESEA be doing to cultivate emerging leaders in sustainability and the built environment?
Caroline Petrovick: If I weren’t involved with NESEA through my firm’s office, I don’t know how aware I would be of NESEA. In my grad school program, I think the only people who attended the BE Conference were Jesse and I – both from Coldham & Hartman. I think NESEA could do a better job of marketing to students and faculty of the NE schools.
Social media, like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, present good opportunities for reaching out to younger potential members. I don’t mean to focus only on social media as a way to reach younger members, but I strongly believe it is the best, most efficient way to introduce NESEA to that generation.
NESEA: How can we use mentoring?
Caroline Petrovick: I think there’s an opportunity to get the universities more involved, initially by involving the professors and then engaging the students.
Again, I am not active in a chapter because there isn’t one in central MA, but I imagine that they could be a great opportunity for mentoring. I think smaller groups like the chapters would be a more comfortable setting for young members to get involved with.
NESEA: In person meet ups?
Caroline Petrovick: I’d like to see more opportunities available for smaller group meetings in Central Massachusetts. Social media might be helpful in convening such group meetings.
As I mentioned earlier, I also really like the way the public forums are set up. A series of lectures or forums similar to the Public Forum at the BE conference may attract younger members. These lectures/forums could potentially be set up at Colleges in MA.
Name: Jennifer
Email:
In this blog installment and the next one we will examine more closely how environmental factors, including climate, can provide drivers that have the potential to become “the last straw” on top of others factors that may lead to conflict. In worst cases, environmental stresses may turn out to be an even more instrumental factor in conflict. The illustration above depicts some of the potential effects of climate change and how they directly or indirectly might produce some of those stresses on societies.
We have already mentioned one example from antiquity where those in an isolated community so devastated their environment that it led to the demise of their society. This was the mystery of Easter Island and what may have happened there to its early inhabitants have been summarized as:
“…without trees, and so without canoes, the Islanders were trapped in their remote home, unable to escape the consequences of their self inflicted, environmental collapse… there were increasing conflicts over diminishing resources resulting in a state of almost permanent warfare.”[1]
While some might argue that this was a self-imposed environmental disaster, there have been natural changes in the environment that may provide lessons for future anthropomorphic climate-induced changes. For instance Dr. Michael Wysession, Professor of Geophysics at Washington University recounts how aerosols ejected into the atmosphere by volcanoes can lead to severe temperature decreases…and conflict. He notes:
…[volcanic eruptions] can and have been the most catastrophic of these climate changes that can significantly alter the course of human history instantaneously….For instance, why did the French Revolution occur in 1789? If you’ve taken courses in modern European History you probably have a whole bunch of reasons having to do with a variety of socio-economic problems developing in Europe. Well, it’s much simpler than that, it’s volcanoes. In 1783 Hekla Volcano in Iceland and Asama Volcano in Japan erupted violently. These spewed out a tremendous amount of ash and aerosols that decreased the temperatures all across the globe. In fact, the year before the Storming of the Bastille was the coldest winter of the century. Crops failed everywhere; massive starvation occurred … It was only one of about a dozen governments that collapsed… [2]
Professor Wysession also goes on to make the point that even the Western Expansion in the US was, at one period, largely due to the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815. A year later they experienced the “Year Without a Summer” which also brought with it a lack of food and ensuing starvation. This presents one example of how climate change can quickly spur massive migrations which, under some circumstances, can destabilize governments.
Fast forward 190 years later to 2006 when UN General Secretary Kofi Annan said:
Climate change has profound implications for virtually all aspects of human well-being, from jobs and health to food security and peace within and among nations…until we acknowledge the all encompassing nature of the threat, our response will fall short. [3]
In that short statement he identified at least two drivers, health and food, related to climate change that could imperil national and global stability. Many may not immediately recognize “health” as a climate-driven issue but a number of studies have been performed by Dr. Paul Epstein of Harvard and others on how transition to a warmer and wetter world could lead to increased vector-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue fever. In many still developing-countries any increase in levels of disease could add yet another burden leading to destabilization even to the point of some nations becoming what are termed “failed states.” Looking at the 2009 Failed States Index [4], deterioration of public services (such as health) is one indicator that could lead to a higher ranking for potential failure and possibly aggravate yet another factor– delegitimization of the state. Such states as Somalia, that in the past have become failed states, offer fertile ground for extremists groups fomenting conflict.
While agricultural crops might be enhanced via longer growing seasons from global warming, for the most part food security may be compromised in a number of ways by climate change and usually in those countries that can least afford it. These include:
Lack of water (or too much at the wrong time)
Increased heat leading to the inability of some crops to germinate
Migration of some crops northward
Increase in pests
Degradation of agricultural land
Ironically, one unintended consequence of climate change mitigation has also included the cutting of natural forests and conversion of crop lands to produce biofuels to replace fossil fuels driving climate change. This often causes more harm than good particularly if the fuels also require heavy fossil fuel inputs for their production.
More on how climate change can drive conflict next time in Climate of Conflict 2
Environmental Security Part I: The Basics
Environmental Security Part II: Enter the Pentagon
Environmental Security Part III: Old Soldier Never Die, But They Can Change
Environmental Security Part IV: The Pentagon is My Friend?
[1] Ponting, Clive. The Lessons of Easter Island Also see: Diamond, Jared. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.
[2] How the Earth Works. Wysession, Michael E., Professor of Geophysics. Washington University. The Teaching Company. Lesson 40.
[3] speech of November 8, 2006.
[4] Draper, Robert. Why Things Fall Apart. National Geographic. September 2009.
Name: Joel, aka "Gordo"
Email:
Web Site: http://home.earthlink.net/~jgordes
Bio: Joel Gordes of West Hartford, CT has been a NESEA Member since 1976. He has worked in active solar R&D, design and sales as well as having designed or aided in design of over 200 passive solar homes. From 1987-1991 he spent two terms in the Connecticut legislature where he was Vice-Chair of the Energy & Public Utilities Committee.Prior to that he ran weapons for the Air Force; ours, not theirs.
