In our Backyard: DEP on Climate Chnage

Via Stef '06 at the DEP:

Take the Carbon Challenge, In Our Back Yard

The news about climate change these days can be distressing, if not down-right depressing. With Congress grappling over the intricacies of many-hundred-page climate bills, many of us feel powerless to accomplish much on that front. However, while not one of us will singlehandedly bring about a low-carbon future, each and every one of us can take actions in our own lives and homes to reduce our “carbon footprint”—that is, the amount of climate-change causing emissions our direct actions cause.

The New England Carbon Challenge (www.necarbonchallenge.org <http://www.necarbonchallenge.org/> ) gives us an opportunity to figure out just how much climate-changing carbon we are responsible for and provides realistic options for measures we can take to reduce that footprint. The Challenge is a joint initiative of the University of New Hampshire and Clean Air - Cool Planet
(www.cleanaircoolplanet.org <http://www.cleanaircoolplanet.org/> ) that works to educate, inspire and support sustained reductions in residential energy consumption.

According to the New England Carbon Challenge website, about half of all climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions come from households through their energy consumption for motor vehicles, home heating and electricity usage. With the Challenge’s Carbon Estimator, an individual can enter some basic household data (such as number of people in the home, gallons of heating oil used, etc.) and get an estimate of the amount of carbon emitted by that household in a year. From there it gives a number of options for reducing home energy consumption and the amount of carbon (and money!) saved by taking those actions.

The New England Carbon Challenge also offers opportunities for communities and organizations (such as schools, businesses, faith-based organizations and civic groups) to get involved and be recognized as leaders in reducing energy consumption, putting these towns and groups on the Energy Challenge Map and providing them with tools, resources, strategies, and support to help households estimate their emissions, map out a plan to reduce these emissions, and chart the community’s progress in achieving its carbon-reduction goals.

While not everyone feels compelled to halt climate change, almost no one will say no to saving a few bucks. The New England Carbon Challenge estimates that households that have taken the Challenge are saving about $755 a year in fuel and electricity costs. Now that’s worth taking the Challenge.

To sign up your community or organization, or to find your own household carbon emissions and steps you can take to reduce your emissions and save money, go to www.necarbonchallenge.org <http://www.necarbonchallenge.org/> .

This column was submitted by Andrea Lani, an Environmental Specialist with the Maine DEP Bureau of Air Quality. In Our Back Yard is a weekly column of the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.

National Forests accept climate role

The leadership in DC has been discussing this for a few years, but this is the first time I've seen a serious coverage of ground-level understanding.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/science/earth/29trees.html?hpw

Thanksgiving, and the fixings...

Here's the result of Thanksgiving cookery at the Womerlippi Farm. Minus the pumpkin pie, which I forgot to put on the table for the photo.

Sprouts, carrots, potatoes, pumpkin, lamb sausage and sage for stuffing: ours.

Turkey: Raised by an young Amishman called James, who at the age of 15 or 16 essentially runs his own farm and can drive a three horse plow with ease. Three Belgiums too, mind, huge 18-hand mega-horses.

Cranberries, stuffing bread, onions: Commercial.

And here's a slide show by provocative NYT artist/commentator Maira Kalman, whose work I like.

http://kalman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/26/back-to-the-land/?8dpc

I found it hard to read some of her comments. Apparently there are people who think that growing your own food is elitist.

Here's an example, the most egregious since it seeks to inject reverse racism:

"I’d rather the kids learned how to read, write and add rather than dig, clean up, and recite the elitist food cant of white people with too much money and time on their hands."

I may grow my own food on my own land that I struggled for years to be able to buy, and that may make me elitist, but I plan to do so until the day I die.

I tend to feel more like I'm reclaiming my birthright as a working class Englishman and a Yorkshireman from a rural area now swamped by suburbs, reclaiming in fact what my grandfather and grandmother tried to teach me, but were not able to succeed at, thanks to the distractions that engaged me as a teenager. I also tend to think that what we do here on this small farm is a natural consequence of the many years of thought my wife and I have put into our criticism of society, and represents our own effort to change that for the better.

We raise affordable, high quality meat, eggs, firewood, fleece (for yarn), and vegetables that we sell for a reasonable price, or often just give away.

How is that elitist? Somebody needs to get out of the city once in a while.

Never one to dodge an argument, I posted the above response on the NYT site.

I should have added that since of course we both also teach math, science, reading and writing to students of all backgrounds, we both also believe in education. But if that education is only fitting to secure the recipients a better-paid place in the machine, and not the fierce independence of thought Aimee and I value so highly, then it will be at least partially a wasted effort.

And who then will renew society and make it better each generation? A society too, that will always need to eat.

Important new planning case

The state can seize land for economic development if the area is "blighted."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/25/nyregion/25yards.html?hpw

A different kind of anemometer, on a different kind of island

I received a call Friday from an interesting Maine personality, George Baker, CEO of Fox Islands Wind, LLC, and professor at Harvard Business School.

George had just completed the commissioning process on the important Fox Islands wind project, a 4.5 MW wind farm out on the island of Vinalhaven, and Maine's pioneer community-owned wind project.

Vinalhaven island is home to one of Maine's signature communities of practical lobstermen, back-to-the-landers, and well-heeled refugees from the lower 47, a very quaint, sometimes twee, always fiercely independent kind of life.

Now they get to make their own power.

George needed an anemometer system pronto, to comply with a (somewhat) surprise DEP permitting requirement that a logging decibel meter and logging anemometer be installed to record and study any possible wind nuisance above DEP levels. If he couldn't get this installed, he might have to turn off the turbines, which would lose beaucoup money for the community.

As one of only a handful of folks in the state who have this kind of gear "just lying around," and an advocate for community-owned wind power in Maine, I was more than happy to help. Luckily, the call came at the start of my nine-day Thanksgiving break so I had time to help.

This resulted in a three-day burst of activity. The logistics, brain, and muscle-power involved in putting up any serious anemometer tower are formidable and stress inducing. Hundreds of parts, lots of details, a dozen specialized jobs each with its own special tool. Annoying knacks to several tasks that experienced guys just do, while the rest of us struggle for hours. Heavy physical labor. Cold steel that hurts your hands to touch in winter.

Add the slight further difficulty of a remote island site with a 75 minute ferry ride, and you can imagine the potential result.

This is one of those cases where you think of everything that will happen, and then think of everything that is likely to happen, and then think of everything that just might happen, and try to be ready for all of them, and the thing you didn't think would happen at all!

We had a fun-filled if slightly frenetic day. My instinctive response to this kind of stress is to slow down a bit and use my brain more, which I'm sure was frustrating for George, who's the kind of high-powered guy that juggles about four lives and six major projects, all successfully. A brain on overdrive, like a fast car.

Me, my brain is 4WD and works best in low range. An old Land Rover. 1961 Series !. Ex UK military. "As is."

I consider it a successful workday and a good time, if, at the end of the day, the equipment is installed, works, and no-one is injured or hurt. If it looks even likely that something bad might happen, I slow down and drop a cog.

Then I go home to my one life and slow right down some more.

The device we installed is 30 feet out of a 60 meter NRG TallTower system. We have an anemometer and vane at 30 feet, another anemometer at 15 feet, and a temperature recorder at logger height. Instead of cutting our 60 meter cables, worth a hundred dollars or more each (and there are 24 of them!), we got replacement cable in shorter lengths.

The system is installed in a somewhat sheltered location, juts outside the 1,000 foot radius from the turbine. It is designed to study the case or phenomenon in Maine that is somewhat common, where our high wind shears keep turbines running, but the low ground winds mean low ambient noise, and so the turbine is noisier than it would be in Iowa or Minnesota or Scotland where high ambient winds rustling trees and leaves drown out turbine noise at around 1,000 feet or so.

The day was fairly successful and we erected the tower without incident and got the logger running and even made the ferry back with time to spare.

Which means that the turbines can keep turning and making power and money for the islanders, and reducing climate emissions to boot.

Amen to that.

I couldn't take students on this project, all sensible students being safe at home for the break, but we can go back for some follow-up work in a few weeks time.

Students will enjoy the trip to the island. I did. When I wasn't working flat out.

Dismal science?

We all could save more emissions than we do. I expect, for instance, if I cut my satellite TV and book-buying habits down, and undertook one or two other economies, I could afford the payments on a Toyota Prius, and poop-can my 12 year old Escort station wagon, saving between 10 and 20 mpg.

Actually, the Prius would be the wrong move.

Let me explain:

For a good deal less, I could buy my wife a Chevy Aveo, and save even more gas -- simply because she drives a Nissan Frontier pick-em-up truck, which, although pretty good for a pick-up, is far worse a guzzler than my modest "shop teacher" wagon with all the tools in the back, and the up-to-date oil change stickers.

This is the paradox of fuel efficiency -- you can save more emissions by switching from a moderate guzzler like the Nissan, which gets 19 mpg for an EPA highway mileage estimate, albeit a bit more the the way Aimee drives, to a moderate saver like the Aveo which gets 34 mpg, than you can from switching from a moderate saver like the Escort to an efficient saver like the Prius.

At today's prices, neither switch pays for itself. The cost of owning the Aveo is about $160/month plus gas savings, the Prius about $300/month. It would take much more savings in gas, or a cheaper price, for even the Aveo to pay for itself. However, if, as is likely the Nissan becomes in need of more frequent repairs, the Aveo might make out.

And if I had enough money to buy the Prius? I'd buy some more insulation for my house instead. I'd save more emissions that way.

This is the sort of calculation that makes romantic environmentalists, and Toyota marketers, mad. If you are purely a moralist and like your rights and wrongs in black and white, having someone tell you that you'd save more emissions by buying a more modest, less holier than thou, vehicle, is not what you want to hear.

But the numbers speak for themselves.

I've only been thinking about this because I just put about $1,000 into the Nissan and am not done yet. And I quite like the Aveo. It won't do me any good though. Aimee likes the Honda Fit. She likes all that funky storage room. I promised her one last year, but we got the secondhand Escort instead because it was a nice deal at only $1,200 from another UC prof (thank you Barry).

Now switching from the Nissan to another secondhand Escort as nice as this one?

Such a deal.

Deteriorating carbon sinks

Ocean acidification is reducing the effectiveness of the oceanic carbon sink. We knew this, but now we have a new, better data set and a better explanatory model.



http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/19/science/earth/19oceans.html?hpw


and

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v462/n7271/full/nature08526.html