Should Obama Send His Science Team on a National Campaign to Explain Climate Science?

It's been a couple months of seriously bad PR for climate science, both due to unfortunate errors made by scientists and (okay, mostly) a well-funded noise machine intent on preserving the status quo at any cost. So how can climate scientists dig themselves out of the negative publicity trench and help reeducate the public on the dangers of climate change? The answer's not debating skeptics on TV, that's for sure. So would a full-on national media blitz by Obama's Nobel Prize winning science team--Stephen Chu and John Holdren--help do the trick?


That's what Climate Progress's Joe Romm suggests, after taking advice from a recent editorial in the scientific journal Nature.

Here's an excerpt from the Nature article (subscription required), entitled Climate of Fear (via CP): The integrity of climate research has taken a very public battering in recent months. Scientists must now emphasize the science, while acknowledging that they are in a street fight.

Climate scientists are on the defensive, knocked off balance by a re-energized community of global-warming deniers who, by dominating the media agenda, are sowing doubts about the fundamental science. Most researchers find themselves completely out of their league in this kind of battle because it's only superficially about the science. The real goal is to stoke the angry fires of talk radio, cable news, the blogosphere and the like, all of which feed off of contrarian story lines and seldom make the time to assess facts and weigh evidence. Civility, honesty, fact and perspective are irrelevant.

And all that is exactly why it's all but futile for a climate scientist to go on TV to attempt to refute anti-science misinformation. So what to do? Scientists, who were never trained for and therefore aren't particularly adept at "street fights" aren't the ideal candidates to get in the ring. But scientists, despite the recent deluge of bad PR regarding climate, remain more trusted than almost any other group in relaying information to the people--and rightly so. When I write about a scientific report, for instance, the skeptical are apt to write me off because of my involvement in the media and my 'liberal bias'.

So here's what Romm suggests:
"I urge the administration to send science advisor Holdren and NOAA Administrator Lubchenco and Energy Secretary Chu on a media blitz and national tour to explain and emphasize the science ... Launch a cross-country tour and media blitz with the science advisor and NOAA Administrator. They should be joined by local scientists and, whenever possible, our energy secretary. When you are in a street fight, you want to bring your biggest guns.

What do you think? Could a media blitz from our nation's top-ranking scientists help quell the onslaught of denier misinformation being peddled in outlets like Fox?

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Underwater SkyScrapers

Ocean levels are rising around the globe, so rather than tethering our buildings to the sinking shoreline why not suit them for a life at sea? That’s the approach behind the Water-Scraper, a futuristic self-sufficient floating city. A special mention in this year’s eVolo Skyscraper Competition, the design expands the concept of a floating island into a full-fledged underwater skyscraper that harvests renewable energy and grows its own food.                                            

Touted as a self-sufficent floating city, Sarly Adre Bin Sarkum’s Water-Scraper utilizes a variety of green technologies. It generates its own electricity using wave, wind, and solar power and it produces its own food through farming, aquaculture, and hydroponic techniques. The surface of the submerged skyscraper sustains a small forest, while the lower levels contain spaces for its inhabitants to live and work. The building is kept upright using a system of ballasts aided by a set of squid-like tentacles that generate kinetic energy.

The architects “envision a future where land as a resource will be scarce; it is only natural progression that we create our own. Approximately 71% of the Earth’s surface is ocean, even more if climate change has its way, hence it is only natural progression that we will populate the seas someday.” As anyone who has seen Waterworld will attest, it’s a grim future indeed — which is why it’s essential that we do what we can to stem the course of the world’s rising tides.

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Developers' Design Floating Power Plants

Take a huge oceanic catamaran, stick a hydroelectric turbine underneath it, and hitch it to a 6.5 million-square-foot parafoil flying nearly a mile in the air. That’s a Korean research team’s new proposal for generating gigawatts of clean energy.
As the parafoil pulls the boat, seawater would be forced through the turbine, which generates electricity. The 800 megawatts of electricity produced would separate seawater into hydrogen and oxygen by electrolysis, and the hydrogen would then be stored on-board the ships.

“The calculation shows that, with a large such ship, a gigawatt order electrical power may be harvested by this system,” wrote Park Chul of the Korea Aerospace Research Institute and Kim Jongchul of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, in the journal Energy in March.

“If such ships are deployed at 20-km (12.4-mile) intervals over two temperate zones, one in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in the Northern Hemisphere and the other everywhere in the Southern Hemisphere, the total power produced will be many times that needed by the world,” they wrote.

The new system is a remarkable, if a bit wacky, synthesis of different lines of new energy R&D. Park and Kim rightly note that parafoils — large industrial-strength kites — are now used by the German company Skysails to reduce the fuel consumption of ocean-going vessels by up to 35 percent.

High-altitude wind power using similar parafoils has received increasing attention from entrepreneurs and green tech backers like Google.org because the higher you go, the better and steadier the winds are.

And small groups have been working on hydroelectric generators mounted to sailboats.

But it’s fair to say that though the system is largely a recombination of things that are on the cusp of feasibility, nothing even remotely similar has been tried, or even suggested, by anyone. As such, the components such a plant would need are not currently manufactured. For example, the largest commercially available parafoil has an area of just 6,835 square feet, or about 945 times smaller than the wing the researchers propose.

The idea doesn’t even have a catchy name yet. Perhaps it could be called the “hydro paraplant.”

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Diet Coke Is BAD For the Environment

I live a pretty green lifestyle, though I'm embarrassed to admit that I have one habit that's not so eco-friendly -- my love of Diet Coke. I have to have at least one a day. Really, how bad is it for the environment?

-Marty

When it comes to going green, image counts for a lot. You may have just outfitted your entire house with solar panels, but order up one diet soda to go with your sprout-topped double veggie burger, and all of a sudden your eco-conscious friends think you're a junk food-loving slob. I'm hyperbolizing of course, but it does call to mind the paradoxical (yet all-too-common) image of the weight-conscious American hitting up the drive-thru: I'll take a double cheeseburger, large fry, and a Diet Coke, please! That's probably why my environmental consultant friend apologizes every time we lunch and she orders up a diet pop, as she calls it. She knows it looks bad, but like you, she just can't help herself.

I'm not one to harshly judge such eco-vices; even the most dedicated environmentalists among us have at least one (mine: Pantene conditioner), and an occasional indulgence in a diet soda isn't likely to break the global warming bank. But if you're drinking at least one a day, you might be surprised to know that there are some interesting environmental ramifications for your beloved beverage -- aside from the already well-publicized negative ones regarding your health, like increased risk of weight gain and a decline in kidney function.

While the arguments below may also apply to other beverages packaged in bottles and cans (e.g., regular soda and bottled water), let's, for argument's sake, give exhibit A -- Diet Coke -- a thorough eco-examination.

The aspartame: Likely genetically modified, since it's made using a fermentation process involving corn and soy, two of the biggest GM crops. Switching to regular Coke won't get you off the hook, either (at least not in the United States), since the sweetener used -- high fructose corn syrup -- is made from genetically altered corn. Think you're only polluting your own body? A study last year by German researchers found that artificial sweeteners may be contaminating our drinking water, since sewage treatment plants don't seem to be effective at removing them from waste water.

The plastic bottle: Twenty-five percent recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET), 75 percent good old-fashioned fossil fuel-based plastic. The bottled water industry gets a bad rap (deservedly so) for the 17 million barrels of oil a year used to produce its plastic bottles, but let's not forget that your 20-ouncer of DC is packaged exactly the same way. Or that Coca-Cola also owns Dasani.

The glass bottle: Super cool looking, not so cool for the environment: Retro-style Diet Coke has twice the carbon footprint of Diet Coke in the can, thanks to heavier transportation loads (read: more fuel). And although glass containers are infinitely recyclable, US consumers recycle only about a quarter of them.

The can: Made from half virgin aluminum -- an abundant resource that unfortunately is environmentally destructive to mine: The aluminum industry uses as much electricity as the entire continent of Africa, and a ton of toxic chemicals is left behind for every ton of the metal produced.

The can lining: Contains packaging additive bisphenol A (BPA), a toxic chemical that's been linked to cancer, sexual development abnormalities, and heart disease, among other serious health conditions. A Health Canada study last year found BPA levels in soda to be below what's been deemed a "safe limit," but other studies have found even extremely low doses of the chemical to spur cancer cell growth in test animals.

The water: Comprises 99 percent of a Diet Coke -- a fact Coca-Cola has touted in its advertising, perhaps to take advantage of the eight-glass-a-day hydration craze. But all that water has to come from somewhere, and the company has taken heat in recent years for continuing its bottling operations in areas afflicted by severe water shortages, most notably in drought-stricken India.

Bringing it to you: And of course, you can't forget the energy cost -- and associated greenhouse gas emissions -- of manufacturing, distribution, and refrigeration. In its 2008 Corporate Responsibility Review, Coca-Cola UK determined that the equipment used in retail outlets to refrigerate its drinks accounted for over 70 percent of the company's carbon emissions.

While a daily Diet Coke may seem small as sustainability sins go, curbing consumption could have a collectively large impact when you consider that 59 percent of Americans drink diet soda. Can't beat the fake thing? Reduce packaging waste by only treating yourself to a fountain-dispensed glass of diet pop at a restaurant, or consider a home soda maker like one from Sodastream. How's that for (artificially) sweet success?

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China Chastizes US For Not Doing Enough About Climate Change

BEIJING — China told the United States on Wednesday to make stronger commitments on climate change and provide environmental expertise and financing to developing nations.

At the same time, China said its own efforts to reduce energy intensity have been hampered by its economic recovery in the latter part of last year, which brought growth in heavy energy-consuming industries.

China's top climate change negotiator, Xie Zhenhua, acknowledged the current U.S. administration's greater stress on greenhouse gas reductions, but said its pledges thus far fall short of expectations.

"So we hope the United States will do more. ... We hope the United States will not shift the responsibility for taking more active action to other countries," Xie told a news conference on the sidelines of China's annual legislative session. Xie said he understands that legislation has to work its way through the U.S. Congress and said Beijing wanted dialogue to achieve "fruitful results" at a climate change conference in Cancun, Mexico, in December.

President Barack Obama has struggled to gain passage of a bill that would commit the United States to reducing greenhouse gases by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020 and to paying a "fair share" into a fund to help developing countries deal with climate change.

China, the world's largest emitter of heat-trapping greenhouse gases, has said it will cut its "carbon intensity" – a measure of carbon dioxide emissions per unit of production – by 40 percent to 45 percent by 2020, compared with 2005 levels.

Energy intensity fell 14.38 percent in the four years up to 2009, but still lagged behind a target to lower it by 20 percent in the 2006-2010 period as the economy picked up last year, according to a government report handed out at the news briefing. "Heavy energy-consuming and heavy emission industries have been growing rapidly," the report said. "The decline of energy intensity has slowed down for the first time."

At last year's Copenhagen climate conference, many developed countries had hoped the Kyoto Protocol, which only requires emissions cuts of rich countries, would be replaced with an accord that also makes demands on developing nations.


Instead, the U.S., EU, Brazil, South Africa, India and China brokered a deal requiring poor countries to propose voluntary actions. Rich countries also vowed to provide $30 billion in emergency climate aid to poor nations in the next three years, and set a goal of eventually channeling $100 billion a year to them by 2020.

Xie said China hoped developed countries would be able to work out the sizes of their own contributions to emergency climate aid by the end of the year.


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THE FACEBOOK VIRUS!

It has come to the attention to the Facebook staff that there is an email/message being sent to almost everyone who is a member of Facebook that contains a virus. If you receive a message, DO NOT open it; it will come as a video off of Youtube. If you click the link, the virus instantly begins downloading and attacking your PC. The virus has been identified as a "Koobface" virus, or to hackers as the "Computer Zombie". If the virus is downloaded into your PC, you are risking not only loosing all of your files and personal information but the chance of never being able to use your computer again.

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Gillibrand, Van Jones Team Up To Praise Green Jobs

Flanked by forced-out former green jobs czar Van Jones, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) said Monday that creating new jobs in green industries presents the "greatest market opportunity of our generation."
Comparing the call to create "green jobs" to former President John F. Kennedy's call for landing a man on the Moon, Gillibrand said at a forum that the nation needs to act in order to inspire the next generation of scientists.
"Green jobs" are those in industries that promote environmental protection and energy independence, like energy efficiency, renewable energy and smart energy. With millions of Americans unemployed and global warming threatening the globe, the burgeoning field of green technology could be the nation's next great job creation vehicle.
It's the "moral, political and economic challenge of our time," said Jones, former special adviser for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Jones said that creating new jobs in green industries would combat both global warming and the recession.
Jones was http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/06/glenn-beck-gets-first-sca_n_278281.html
forced out of the White House in September after conservatives, led by Fox News Channel host Glenn Beck, launched an attack on his background in radical activism.
While the U.S. dithers, other countries are aggressively moving ahead. Gillibrand noted that China invested $440 billion last year in green technology such as solar panels.
Gillibrand said that she'd like to see the nation be "energy independent in a decade," adding that it's a "call to action I'd like to see this President give us."
Jones said that government policy needs to favor problem solvers like green entrepreneurs rather than problem makers like the oil and coal industries. But Gillibrand pointed out that the Senate is not full of progressives clamoring for change. Moderation is needed, she said. The big ideas like the ones that powered the Obama campaign are "not a reality" from a legislative or political perspective, Gillibrand said. Obama himself is "already pushing towards moderation," she noted in a reference to the president's embrace of nuclear technology, traditionally a Republican cause.
"There was a sweeping election in 2008, but there wasn't a sweeping movement in 2008," said Erica Payne, founder of the Agenda Project, the progressive advocacy organization that hosted Monday's forum. A movement needs a combination of ideas, messages and leaders, Payne said. All three are needed in large supply, she added.
To get the country to fully embrace the green technology movement, Obama needs to give a "shoot-for-the-moon speech," Gillibrand said. "And he has to do it now."

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