This discussion of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions seemed like an appropriate time to talk about how they are calculated.  Many of the tools and programs we are looking at in this class focus on energy consumption, but very few give outputs for GHG emissions.  If someone wants to calculate these emissions, an understanding of how variable GHG emissions are is necessary.  Following is a chart that gives rough averages for pounds of CO2 for each unit of energy measurement.

We talked a lot about tools and online resources that can calculate the estimated PV load for a building, once the energy consumption has been calculated.  Students will likely find a lot of help in these tools for their Term Project requirements.

Finally we talked about the Field Trip, which is a tour on Thursday morning of the PECI offices at Portland’s very new First & Main building. Assignment #3 is to use the spreadsheet analysis tool to try to come up with “Level 1″ outputs. Some inputs students will be able to find on their own throughout the space, but some will not be obvious and will be given at the time of the field trip.  This should also serve as a reminder that students wishing to receive input on their mid-terms from REAL energy modeling professionals will have a chance to do so during the field trip!

All right, now take a look at these two satellite photos.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia.org

Now, go dig out your black Sharpie marker, and go back to your globe, and fill in that blue of the Aral Sea.  Because it’s not there anymore. It vanished.  Just like this:

Image courtesy of NationalGeographic.com

What happened, exactly?  How does the fourth largest lake in the world just go away?  Can you imagine if you used to live in Michigan, and you went back to visit one day, and you visited the lake front, and there was NO lake front, because Lake Michigan had just disappeared?

What happened is that people REALLY screwed up their environment.  Specifically, the rivers that fed into this lake were diverted in a Soviet project to boost cotton production in the arid region, and now it’s shrunk by 90%. And that’s not all:

“The shrunken sea has ruined the once-robust fishing economy and left fishing trawlers stranded in sandy wastelands, leaning over as if they dropped from the air. The sea’s evaporation has left layers of highly salted sand, which winds can carry as far away as Scandinavia and Japan, and which plague local people with health troubles.”

I think that the Aral Sea is a phenomenal example of how much humans can really affect their environment.  Regardless of how you think about climate change, whether you think that it’s man-made or just some “natural cycle of the Earth”, I think the Aral Sea shows us that not only are humans as a species capable of vastly impacting the natural environment, we’ve already done quite a job on it.  So if we can muck it up that badly, aren’t we also capable of fixing it?  We can only hope…

Oh and keep your Sharpie-d up globe handy, for the next time somebody says that humans couldn’t POSSIBLY have that big of an impact on the Earth.  Well, yes, actually we can… you can see it right there.  On a MAP OF THE ENTIRE EARTH.

Image courtesy of Dot Earth (NY Times)

This graph is from the NY Times Dot Earth blog written by Andrew C. Revkin.  Mr. Revkin mentioned a few days ago that while, yes, it is pretty darn cold out there, this current activity is not a result of the Earth’s warming, nor is it an indication that the Earth is cooling.  It’s more like an extreme result of the natural cycle of Arctic oscillation, much like the El Nino and La Nina cycles of the Pacific Ocean.  The tiny blue dot in the lower right-hand corner of the graph, right above the “2010″, is showing a phenomenal plunge of atmospheric pressure in the Arctic in December, almost taking it off the chart, and bringing it to a level lower than anything since at least 1950.  It’s easy to forget that our atmosphere operates in cycles, or waves, and that great swaths of pressure and weather swirl around the globe as they interact with the turning of the Earth on its axis, the heat sink of the oceans and the heat islands on land.  But, Mr. Revkin points out:

Overall, federal forecasters have said that the warming influence of a persistent El Niño warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean is likely to be a bigger driver of conditions through the full course of this winter. When it’s freezing where you sit, it’s hard to keep in mind that it may be  extraordinarily warm elsewhere, as Joe Romm pointed out today.

In other words, winter is winter, it’s just REALLY WINTER-Y.  Nevertheless, I do wonder what kind of weather pattern alterations we’ll start to see as the atmosphere continues to absorb greenhouse gas emissions and the global temperature increases.  Guess we’ll find out soon enough.

Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, there are some pretty vocal people who are still working hard AGAINST even the very notion of climate change, mostly because it’s in their own best interests to do so.  The newest issue of Rolling Stone magazine, always a bit of a lightning rod, has a list of the “17 polluters and deniers who are derailing efforts to curb global warming”, within an even bigger piece about the industries working hard to block progress on climate change. What an eye-opener!   I’ve always kind of thought of Warren Buffett as a sort of “benevolent billionaire” who does the right thing with his billions … imagine my surprise to learn that he bought the BNSF railroad because it’s a large hauler of coal!

Anyway, you should read the list, it’s a good one.  And no offense against anglo-saxon caucasian types, but the list consists quite literally of a bunch of older white “gentlemen” and Senator Mary Landrieu (who, frankly, is taking a rather bizarre pro-drilling stance in her home state of Louisiana, which stands to lose possibly the most if the ice melts and the seas rise).  If it weren’t so sad, it would be comical … you can almost throw these guys in costume and put them in any period piece as “the villians” of every Hollywood epic ever made.  The sad part is, they have to know they’re wrong – but they don’t care, because A) they are all too rich to care, and B) their continued wealth depends on them being willfully and purposefully deceptive.  When you consider how much is at stake … well, it would be nice if these people experienced a “rehabilitation” from “climate killer” to “climate buddy”.

1. Treehugger. If you only want to follow one blog that dishes all the news you could ever hope for that deals with green design, energy, business or living, it should be Treehugger.  Then, 3 days later when you realize that you can’t keep up with their RSS feed because they publish something like 100 posts a day, feel free to come back to my blog and I’ll give you the highlights once a week or so 
2. WhiteHouse.gov/Blog.   Could anyone have imagined when the Internet first showed up in the 1990′s that we would have a direct line of access to our President, and to the initiatives of Executive Branch of our government, straight from the horse’s mouth?  This blog is a revelation in transparency and information dissemination, and has filters for every imaginable subject, including one for Energy & Environment.  BUT, it may not be for everyone; for instance, if you can’t think for yourself and you require a 24-hour news network to tell you what to believe, then by all means, don’t bother reading the WhiteHouse.gov blog.  Or mine, for that matter.
3. Inhabitat.com.  I regard Inhabitat as an old friend, an endeavor that I, myself, might have come up with if I had logged a few more years of experience in the green design industry a bit sooner.  Instead it was founded by my internet friend and green-living-wunderkind Jill Fehrenbacher, and it persists in being awesome due to a small army of like-minded wunderkinds that have since joined the effort.   Wundervoll!
4. GreenInc. For anyone who might be surprised that the green design and energy industries rely as much on business decisions as any other industry.
5. Wired Science. I think Wired has a blog updating schedule similar to that of Treehugger, but I manage to resist all of their feeds in favor of this one, really really great one.  Science nerds unite!
6. DotEarth/NYTimes. One of the first blogs that I ever bookmarked… and one of the closest things to a traditional newspaper column that I read.
7. Al Gore’s blog. Whether you love him, or, ahem, don’t love him, you do have to admit that Al Gore has the access to and the attention of every major world leader who has the opportunity to do something about climate change.  So, I pay attention.  And besides, his blog posts are sometimes adorable.
8. Planet Green. It’s primarily a TV channel, but it also happens to publish stuff that even its Discovery sister media outlet, Treehugger, doesn’t.  Coincidence?  Probably not, but it’s still worth a look.
9. Huffington Post Green. The Huffington Post is a new media standout, that ever-evolving fusion of social-media-network + aggregator + opinion + comedy = something fun to read.  Their Green section, although perhaps not as strong in content as some of the above outlets, nevertheless covers the goods as well as giving us fun polls and the ever-present adorable animal videos.  Worth it just for that last bit, if nothing else.

So there you have it… my Top 9 Inspiration Blogs of 2009. Check them out, and have a Happy New Year, because things are bound to get better in 2010!

Instead of sharing “news” from the conference then, I think I’ll share some tidbits that ARE worth repeating.  And we’ll start with this behemoth:

It's a GIANT sundial! (Image courtesy of Inhabitat)

This, my friends, is apparently the largest “solar energy” building in the world, in Shangdong Province in Northwest China, which is to say that, at 75,000 square meters, it’s the largest building in the world that uses a solar array as a primary energy source.  I can’t find evidence that the solar array powers the WHOLE building all of the time, however.   Stories like this make me wonder if China has been using all of the interest that we are paying them on our loans to make solar powered buildings.  If they can churn out gigantic buildings like this, do you think they can throw a few solar panels our way?  Maybe they can throw in a couple of PV arrays with our loan bill each month?

Next up is one SUPER COOL thing that has debuted in Copenhagen during the past week, and that’s this Copenhagen Wheel created by MIT students.  It’s got a kinetic energy recovery system, sensors, a smart lock, and a Bluetooth connection to the rider’s iPhone.  Talk about reinventing the wheel!  Hardy-har-har.  (Sorry.)

the Copenhagen Wheel (image courtesy of Inhabitat)

Last but not least I’d like to point out this wonderful blog post about the art seen in Copenhagen during COP15 (by, you guessed it, the equally wonderful Inhabitat).   It’s nice to know that the leaders at the conference will have something to think about as they shuttle around the city in their 1200 limos.   Meanwhile, 36% of the actual population of the city gets around by bike, a staggering statistic that is more than 5x the percent of bicyclists in America’s bike city, Portland.

So I guess we’ll just sit back and see how this one ends, shall we?

Without further ado, Former Vice President Al Gore describes how he’s going to “get crazy” to get out the message of climate change.  Right on!

This post was actually inspired by a somber anniversary that I missed last week, and I’ll use it to make an analogy to get where I’m going.  Bear with me.

November 10, 2009 was the 34th anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior in Canadian waters.  The loss of this massive, 729-foot-long freighter is probably best known to my peers, as it certainly is to me, because of a sad song by Gordon Lightfoot.  The ship sank with all 29 of its crewmen, without sending a distress signal, due to – according to a team from the Discovery Channel – a rogue wave.

(Still with me?)

Over the weekend, I saw the movie 2012.  And it was, as you can imagine, pretty ridiculous.  But it was entertaining.  And this movie featured its share of rogue waves, for sure.  Pretty much the biggest waves that fancy movie graphics could muster, probably.

When I got home yesterday, I saw in the news that a joint agreement had been reached by world leaders to … not reach an agreement.  That is, all of our world leaders decided that a binding climate change treaty would NOT be agreed upon at Copenhagen in December.  Instead, our leaders are now telling us that they will aim to reach a less aggressive “politically binding” agreement with the hope that they could address bigger problems in a second, later step.

(Here comes the hook…)

So I got to thinking, ‘wow, that must have been one hell of a big wave that took out the Edmund Fitzgerald.‘  And then I thought, ‘I wonder what sort of “rogue wave” it’s going to take to get our leaders to take action on climate change.  That’s gotta be one hell of a big wave too…“  (Doesn’t everyone think in italics?)

But really.  What’s gotta give for our leaders to take meaningful action?  I fully understand and respect their decision to play down expectations ahead of Copenhagen.  There are a lot of environmental activists making aggressive statements about what needs to be agreed upon in December, and while these activists make some good points, they are also not responsible to millions of people that elected them.  At the same time, I’m sitting here, writing on my blog, and I’ve got that little countdown on the right hand side…. you know, that one, right over there  ————————->

… and I guess I think that if some of these world leaders had a countdown like this on their desktop, maybe they wouldn’t want to put off decision-making anymore.  My hope at this point is that a rogue wave of good intentions and common sense will overcome our leaders, maybe not in December, but soon, at least soon enough so that … well, so that it’s not too late for us to adjust to our warming planet.  (Because I really do NOT want to go out like the folks in 2012 did… highly unpleasant, I tell you.)

So what’s it going to be, World Leaders?  Do you have it in you?

I do want to point out this recent article in the Telegraph out of Britain.  It struck me because the executive in question has won the right to sue his employer because he believes he was unfairly dismissed for his “green views”, meaning, they might be treated as a religion.  Regardless of the legal implications of the case in the U.K., I think this is a really interesting way to approach the practice of green living.  Some of my best friends have told me that my strong convictions about treading lightly on the earth are like my “religion”, and this didn’t offend me.  This case does strike me as peculiar, however, since it poses lifestyle choices as being based on a “belief” in global warming, rather than the fact that it IS happening.  However, the population of the United States believes that global warming only merits a priority of 4.71 on a scale of 1 to 10.  So perhaps our population must rely on global warming as a “belief” to accept it more widely in the public sphere.

This, of course, requires us to accept that scientific fact is optional.  And, since I think the notion that dinosaurs roamed the Earth a mere 6,000 years ago is ludicrous to the point of hilarity, I’m going to have to stop just short of calling what I believe – that is, facts – a “faith”.

Enter Senator John Kerry and Senator Lindsey Graham.  I have always had respect for both of these men, and fortunately I do not think they fall into the category I just mentioned, but they have really stepped up today, with a joint Op-ed in the New York Times about how they can see a path to a bi-partisan compromise on climate change legislation by the end of the year.

WOW.  I mean, here I am writing blog posts about 2015 and how I doubt we’re capable of hitting that target, and these guys step up to my challenge, and the challenge of the international community, and they say, “we can do this.”  I am impressed.  And I am not normally impressed by legislators in the Federal Government.

And I realize that many people think it’s comical, even undeserved, that President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.  (I, myself, thought it was an Onion article when I first saw the news.)  But whether the President’s political enemies accept it or not, I think this type of collaboration and cooperation is a direct result of the change in tone and requests for responsibility that the President brought to the office with him.  He needs this type of initiative from the lawmakers in the Legislative Branch if he is to go to Copenhagen in December and make a real case for how the U.S. can go from ignoring climate change (under President Bush) to leading the charge on it.

So, here’s the thing: despite my blogging about it, and them writing about it, I don’t see Senator Kerry’s and Senator Graham’s Op-ed getting much attention because the mainstream media (MSM) has way too many scandalous things they can talk about instead.  But I am serious about thanking them, and if you think they had some good things to say, you can thank them too.  See here:

Click here to email Senator John Kerry and thank him for his initiative on climate change legislation.

Click here to email Senator Lindsey Graham and thank him for his initiative on climate change legislation.

…And when it comes time to get the job done, let’s not let the Senators forget what they said in this Op-ed!