The report, Scientific Assessment of the Effects of Global Change on the United States, was released today by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. According to the Government Accountability Project, the study was “years overdue under a requirement of law” and was prepared only after a federal court order last year set a release deadline of May 31, 2008.

Among the report’s highlights (or lowlights, depending on your perspective):

The northern parts of Alaska can expect the greatest warming, most noticeably during the winter months, in years to come;

By the end of this century, the U.S. will warm by an average of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, although about one-fourth of climate models project average warming greater than 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit;

While the effect of climate change on hurricane frequency is unresolved, rainfall and wind speeds of tropical storms are likely to increase. In fact, over much of North America, rain is expected to fall less frequently, but more intensely;

Continued warming will drive cool-weather and alpine species farther north or higher up, though some mountain species might eventually find themselves with “nowhere to migrate”;

As the tundra shifts northward in Alaska, forests will move in to replace it. The increase in carbon dioxide uptake thanks to more trees, though, will be offset by the decreased reflectivity of the region, which will mean more sunlight absorption and warmer temperatures;

Those tree-killing bug outbreaks and dead tree-fueled forest fires in Alaska, the West and Southwest? Expect more of them in years to come. For regions not accustomed to a regular fire cycle, that could mean the death knell for species like the saguaro cactus and the Joshua tree;

Small islands with cloud forests such as those found in Hawaii are likely to see some high-elevation species, especially birds, go extinct;

Salt marsh habitats and barrier island ecosystems? Goodbye. The U.S. has already lost more than half its original salt marsh habitat, the report notes, and rising sea levels will threaten much of what’s left;

Some agricultural crops might see an initial productivity boost as carbon dioxide levels and temperatures rise, but the long-term impact could be more crop failures … especially as climate-driven weeds and crop diseases expand;

People might increasingly move from climate-affected regions to other parts of the U.S., altering population centers and economic activity. The reason in many cases might not be climate per se but changes in the availability of insurance;

Transportation infrastructure (already crumbling in many parts of the country because of lack of investment) will feel the hurt of climate change, especially in Alaska, where melting permafrost is making the landscape shift dramatically, and in coastal areas like the Gulf Coast.

In short, whether you live in a highly vulnerable area like Alaska or the desert Southwest, or somewhere else, you’re likely to feel the impact of climate change in one way or another.

As Rick Piltz, director of the Government Accountability Project’s Climate Science Watch program, put it,  “the world has lost precious years to Bush administration officials’ spin, which has failed to prepare our country to deal effectively with the problem.”

Well, residents of the small Alaskan capital of Juneau are showing us how. Following an April 16 avalanche that severed the city’s main power lines, Juneau found itself forced to cut its energy calories big-time literally overnight. It was that, or face energy bills double or triple or many times more than the month before. The good news: society didn’t collapse.

How did residents do it? Let’s count the ways:

• Lower the temperature in your hot-water heater
• Have one person in your office turn off and unplug appliances at the end of the day
• Unplug unused appliances at home; boom boxes and cable boxes are particularly bad energy hogs
• Turn off your PC if you’re not using it for a couple of hours or more
• Turn thermostats down when it’s cold out, up when it’s warm out
• Rearrange furniture in your home to take advantage of natural lighting
• Replace incandescent lightbulbs with CFLs
• Use power strips that let you turn off multiple appliances at once
• Unplug your clothes dryer and use a clothesline instead
• Replace your showerhead with a more efficient model
• Take shorter showers
• Turn off the TV
• Use space heaters or air conditioners to heat or cool only the rooms you need to use
• Check seals on windows, doors and refrigerators
• Keep a flashlight handy for late-night bathroom trips instead of turning on lights
• Have camp lanterns and hand-cranked lighting handy
• Cook quick meals in the microwave instead of using the oven or a slow-cooker
• Don’t wash clothes unless they really need it; wear items two or more times if not offensive to yourself or others
• Wash dishes by hand in a single sinkful of water instead of using the dishwasher
• Switch to a wind-up alarm clock
• Grill outdoors instead of cooking inside
• Remove lightbulbs in multi-bulb fixtures where one or two bulbs will do
• Turn off heat or air conditioning when not at home (or leave on just enough to keep pipes from freezing, or to keep plants and animals comfortable)
• Turn off unnecessary store and electronics displays
• Vacuum refrigerator coils to ensure top efficiency
• Empty and unplug duplicate fridges, freezers, TVs and clocks
• Start car-pooling, walking or cycling
• Turn off plant and fishtank lights, and relocate plants and fish to sunnier parts of the house
• Cancel your cable/satellite TV service
• Run your shower just long enough to get wet, then turn off, soap up and turn water on again just long enough to rinse
• Cut down on Internet surfing, computer gaming, etc.
• Take “sink” baths instead of showers

To see what other tips Juneau’s energy-conscious residents have, check out .JuneauBlogger.

In Juneau, Alaska, for example, people are proving it’s possible to change our energy-hogging ways literally overnight and still keep a community up and running. The inspiration in their case: an avalanche that severed the hydroelectric power lines serving the remote Alaska capital, cutting off about 80 percent of the city’s available electricity.

With service not expected to be restored for three or four months, residents have responded quickly and creatively, slashing their energy consumption in a wide variety of ways: turning off elevators, leaving airport runway lights on only when needed, turning off electronics displays in stores, lowering thermostats and hanging up clotheslines.

In the words of Sarah Lewis, who chairs the city’s Commission on Sustainability, the lesson has been to “Turn off, turn down, unplug.”

Across the U.S., other people are taking that lesson to heart not out of necessity, but because they want to. The New York Times recently profiled a young family from Austin, Texas, that’s giving up almost everything they own to adopt an organic lifestyle in a small Vermont cabin without electricity.

The article goes on to quote Mary E. Grigsby, who authored a book titled, “Buying Time and Getting By: The Voluntary Simplicity Movement.” Given the current situations with energy and oil supplies, Grigsby said, “It may be the right time.”

Closer to home, I’ve experienced by necessity what life after peak oil might feel like. After each of the Gulf Coast hurricanes we’ve lived through, my family and I spent days — sometimes weeks — without electricity, refrigeration, clean running water, air-conditioning or electronic entertainment. It wasn’t always comfortable — especially in Florida’s steamy summer climate — but it was doable, at least for a short time.

I think not only oil prices and peaks, but the economy in general, will be pushing more people into more sustainable lifestyles in the near future. In my own case, for example, a recent car breakdown too costly to repair has forced me into car-sharing. And, while I don’t want to risk my safety right now biking the main highway that leads to my town’s grocery stores, I’ll be ready to do that when more cars go idle. Plus, my home garden will make those trips less necessary over time as well.

What do you expect life after peak oil to look and feel like? How are you preparing? I’m interested to hear all of your thoughts.

On the same day designated as Endangered Species Day by U.S. Senators Susan Collins (Maine) and Dianne Feinstein (California) comes news from the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) that Earth has lost nearly a third of its biodiversity over the past 37 years.

According to the WWF’s Living Planet Index, the number of land species on our planet declined by 25 percent between1970 and 2007. Freshwater species dwindled by 29 percent, with marine species close behind at 28 percent. The worst losses of all have come to marine birds, whose number of species has dropped by 30 percent over the past decade alone.

In the U.S., while the federal government has finally decided to designate the polar bear as a threatened species, many other species await such protection. The Bush administration’s regard on this issue is nothing short of abysmal: only 59 species have received endangered or threatened status during W’s tenure — all of those at requests of the public rather than from officials inside the administration.

For comparison, consider that 521 species won protection during the Clinton years and even George W.’s father had a better record, with 231 species protected.

For a more vivid illustration of species at risk in the U.S., visit EndangeredSpecie.com, which has a clickable map showing life at risk in all 50 states. They range from six species of sea turtles in Florida to three species of whales in Alaska.

This morning on NPR, President Bush tried to blame congress for the nation’s high gas, food, and electricity prices. Apparently, Congress has been thwarting the President’s attempts to fix the economy:

“I’ve repeatedly submitted proposals to help address these problems,” the president said. “Yet time after time, Congress chose to block them.”

The President proposed dealing with high gas prices by “environmentally safe” drilling the the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, better known as ANWR.

“It’s been more than 30 years since America built its last new refinery, yet in this area, too, Congress has repeatedly blocked efforts to expand capacity and build more refineries,” Bush said.

Drilling in ANWR makes perfect sense, since it would supply 876,000 barrels of oil per day to a country that consumes 20,687,000 barrels of oil per day. To put that in perspective, 876,000 barrels is about 1 hour worth of oil, or over the course of a year amounts to about 15 days of US oil consumption.

Of course, we wouldn’t reach 876,000 barrels of oil per day until production peaked in 2025, assuming the oil started flowing by 2013. According to an analysis by the Energy Information Administration back in 2004 (that’s where these numbers come from), peak oil production in ANWR “might reduce world oil prices by as much as 30 to 50 cents per barrel, relative to a projected 2025 world oil price of $27 per barrel.”

Even if the analysis was spot-on about the price of oil (only $100 dollars off), would 30 to 50 cents make a difference? The analysis went on to say that OPEC (being OPEC) would probably “countermand” any change in price by reducing an equivalent amount of oil exports.

So how is it going to help the average American to drill in ANWR? It probably wouldn’t. With oil at $120 a barrel and rising steadily, the only thing that’s clear is how lucrative the proposal would be for oil companies.

Bush also mentioned lifting federal gas and diesel taxes (18.4 cents and 24.4 cents per gallon, respectively) over the summer, another move that would make a huge difference in long term energy security. I think Barack Obama is right about this one: it’s a “gimmick that won’t provide any significant relief to motorists.”

At a meeting with voters in North Carolina on Monday, Mr. Obama said lifting the gas tax for three months would save the average consumer no more than $30, a figure confirmed by Congressional analysts. Mr. Obama has previously dismissed Mr. McCain’s proposal as a “scheme.”

“Half a tank of gas,” Mr. Obama told his audience. “That’s his big solution.”

How about raising petroleum taxes and investing in renewable energy infrastructure? How about setting up a tax on carbon emissions like British Columbia just did? Anything but continuing to invest so heavily in a resource that’s on its way out.

It’s time to start looking for real solutions, and gracefully acquiescing that it’s the end of an era.

To hear Bush’s speech, listen to the NPR show from this morning. Have a comment on this topic? Share it below.

How many times has that been muttered over the past few years, in an attempt to bring a semblance of common sense to the world?

The answer is, obviously, far too many. But nevertheless it has once again been spoken by Margaret Williams of the World Wildlife Fund in Alaska in response to the leasing of millions of offshore acres for petroleum development in the Chukchi Sea, off Alaska.

At the beginning of the year I reported that the US had blocked “…a landmark assessment of oil and gas activity in the high north polar regions…” thus freeing up room for them to auction off drilling-exploration licenses in the Chukchi Sea.

However, this time it isn’t the wildlife that is presenting the problem – because, who cares about the, right? – but the ability to clean up a possible oil spill – something that isn’t that out of the realm of possibility.

Williams noted that no oil-spill responders have demonstrated the ability to clean up oil in broken ice that ranges from slush to cakes of ice.

Ice is a problem for clean up, because it gets in the way. Consider your normal oil spill; booms, skimmers, pumps, etc. But when you throw a whole heap of ice in to the equation, booms are broken, skimmers are jammed and pumps are clogged.

Add to that the fact that it is night a whole heap of the time, and you have conditions that, Leslie Pearson, the state of Alaska’s director of spill prevention and response, describes as a less than ideal cleanup. “It’s not one of those calls I’d like to wake up to,” she said. “It would put you in a cold sweat.”

In fact, the last time federal and state regulators evaluated an oil spill in icy conditions off Alaska’s coast, the results were less than promising. The results showed that, when ice covered more than 30% of the water, the mechanical recovery system became overwhelmed, and collapsed. In conditions less than 30%, skimmers were able to lift oil from the water, as long as tug boats ran interference for them, removing all but 10% of the ice.

This test, by the way, was conducted by BP Exploration in the Beaufort Sea in 2000.

Of course, the director of the Minerals Management Service Randall Luthi believes otherwise. “It’s my personal belief, and certainly the belief of MMS, that these two are compatible,” Luthi said, “but you’ve got to work at it.”

Oh, isn’t that positively adorable! “It’s my personal belief!”

This coming from the man who was an attorney, rancher and former speaker of the Wyoming House of Representatives; definitely the qualities you want in a man making that statement.

Of course, Luthi isn’t the only one suggesting that things have changed. Ron Morris, general manager of Alaska Clean Seas, an industry cooperative that would respond to a spill in the Beaufort, noted that responders have since added ice management vessels and implemented tactics that included combinations of barge, boat and cranes, so as to remove pockets of oil trapped by ice floes.

Luthi agrees with Morris, saying that “It’s not your traditional boats with booms to trap the oil. That doesn’t work with the ice.” He added that burning is another possibility. But Leslie Pearson reminds us that burning is only an effective option within the first 72 hours; after that, oil emulsifies, and burning and dispersants are dropped from the cleanup equation.

“It takes an oil spill response to another level, as opposed to dealing with an open-water scenario,” she said.

 Image courtesy of sara.atkins via Flickr

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But, with age came wisdom, and with wisdom came a shift in my view of the world.

I say that, because in an MSNBC article entitled ‘Yukon Flats wildlife refuge eyed for its oil,’ this sentence appears; “A controversial land swap proposal could open portions of an Alaska wildlife refuge to oil drilling, dividing Alaska natives and stoking opposition from environmentalists seeking to protect the bears, moose and birds that live there.”

The moment I read “moose,” I knew that my perspective on the world had changed. A part of my mind, long since dormant, by instinct reared up and said “It’s a moose! Who cares?!” But it was immediately overridden by the new me which realized the overall importance of sustaining various ecosystems and species.

The plan is a land trade, which would give 110,000 acres of hydrocarbon-prone uplands within the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge, plus mineral rights to another 97,000 acres, to Fairbanks-based Doyon Ltd. The Refuge lies just south of the ‘always-in-the-news’ Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

In exchange, and definitely a plus to the deal, the Refuge would acquire 150,000 acres of bird-friendly wetlands, currently owned by Doyon, as well as 56,500 acres on which Doyon currently has pending land claims.

The bad news is the possible disruption to one of the most unique ecological locations in the US. The Refuge is located in eastern interior Alaska, cradling the Arctic Circle and bisected by the Yukon River. It lies between the White Mountains National Recreation Area and Steese National Conservation Area to the south, and ANWR and Venetie Indian Reservation to the north. It is the third largest national wildlife refuge, and is large than the states of Maryland and Delaware combined.

A total of 35 mammal species wander the park, including Black and Grizzly bears, moose and beaver. The refuge also is home to the highest density of breeding ducks in Alaska, as well as more than 160 other species of bird. Additionally, a songbird banding station has found that some 15,000 common, Pacific and red-throated loons spend summers among the lakes, rivers and wetlands on the refuge.

And, for me, possibly the most important life inhabiting the area, are the fish. The Yukon River, along with ten other rivers that flow through the refuge, is home to three species of salmon and 15 species of freshwater fish. The salmon that traverse the rivers come from the Bering Sea, through the Yukon Flats, all the way to Canada, a total of 2,000 miles upstream, all so that they can spawn their young.

Supporters of the plan, backed by Doyon, owned by Athabascan Indians of interior Alaska, view the land swap as beneficial to everyone. “You can have both the subsistence lifestyle and the protection of that lifestyle, and you can have oil and gas exploration,” said Norm Phillips, Doyon’s resource manager.

But not everyone agrees, including local residents – also Doyon shareholders – believe that they will be the ones to lose out. “Usually, the indigenous people are at the losing end of any sort of oil development,” said Dacho Alexander, first chief of the Gwichyaa Zhee Gwich’in Tribe in Fort Yukon, a village of 600 near the proposed exchange parcels.

Those behind the plan hope that the Bush administration will approve the plan before they are kicked out of office. “The window is the election,” Alaska Republican Rep. Don Young, a staunch backer of the plan, said at an Anchorage news conference. “We’d like to have an executive order out of the administration before they leave office.”

This isn’t so much a surprise as a ridiculous plea to get it done before Democrats enter and all hope is lost. Why wait for the will of the people when you can get the most environmentally unfriendly President to do your dirty work for you before the people can get involved.

The worst bit of it all? The Yukon Flats basin holds only an estimated 173 million barrels of oil, or, approximately 9 days of U.S. consumption at current rates. In addition there is 5.5 trillion cubic feet of gas and 127 million barrels of natural-gas liquids (this all according to the U.S. Geological Survey).

But, regardless of whether the land swap goes through, according to Norm Phillips, Doyon is still going to move forward with exploration out there.”

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Today though, the British Times Online is reporting that the American government is to add the polar bear to its list of endangered species.

The US Interior Department has made an announcement saying that the decision to put polar bears on the list will come “sooner rather than later.”

As mentioned above, conservationists have linked the delay in protecting the bears to oil and gas exploration hopes in the Alaskan region. Chris Tollefson, speaking for the US government, said that the timing between the two events – protecting the bears and plans to sell off exploration rights – were simply coincidental. “They have moved on parallel tracks, but both driven by the complexity of the science involved,” he said.

Andrew Wetzler, of the US National Resources Defense Council, said that it would be a rare acknowledgement of damage caused by global warming from the White House.

However, there are still “reservations,” according to Tollefson, referring to Alaska’s Republican governor, Sarah Palin, who says polar bears could still be protected while still expanding the oil business. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.

Photo Courtesy of mape_s via Flickr

With regard to the LEED program, Washington and Oregon each have certified or registered projects numbering in the hundreds. By comparison, Alaska has only three LEED certified buildings (A National Weather Service facility, a visitor’s center at Denali Park, and the Homer City Library) and less than 20 projects currently registered.

What accounts for this difference? Chris Stephens of the Anchorage Daily News reported in October that, “In Alaska, past development and environmental battles have given the word ‘green’ a lot of baggage for some.” Fairbanks builder Mike Musick, who has been working to develop more environmentally-friendly home building techniques in Alaska since the 1970’s, tells the Alaska Business Monthly that educating consumers as well as builders is the key to increasing demand.

But the state’s interest in sustainable building is growing. Organized efforts took shape last year when a group of Alaskan citizens formed the Anchorage Sustainable Building Initiative (SBI). The SBI seeks to “promote the adoption of ordinances, incentives and practices that will achieve the vision of sustainable site and building design practices” in the city.

A major step forward occurred on January 1st of this year, when the Alaska chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council joined the Cascadia Region Green Building Council, a chapter that already covered Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. With the support of Cascadia, Alaska should be able to advance its efforts quickly. The Cascadia GBC’s online January newsletter states that it will seek funding for an Alaska State Director this year, as well as organize programming for the state. In a press release dated January 9th, it is stated that the Alaska branch of the GBC hopes to move sustainable building beyond the urban areas into smaller rural communities.

One factor that is spurring Alaska to step up its efforts? “The emerging reality of climate change is becoming readily apparent throughout the Northwest, more so in Alaska and British Columbia,” says Lynn Barrett, chair of the Alaska branch of the GBC, in their press release.  So with the effects of climate change becoming more and more visible in the far north, perhaps we can expect to see a greater push for change coming from that region also.

Image Credit: National Park Service

But then we get little nuggets of gold like this one, featuring the Ecuadorans who are now top on my list of "World's Greatest People."

Ecuador has pledged not to extract or explore the nearly one billion barrels of oil hidden underneath its Yasuni National Park. Despite the fact that oil exports make up one third of the country's budget, Ecuador will become the first country to deliberately leave oil reserves untouched.

However, Ecuador may not take quite the financial hit expected, because they could receive financial incentives in reward for this action. The fact that they are essentially removing the equivalent of 436 million tons of carbon dioxide from the planet is definitely worthy of such reward.

Yasuni is home to two indigenous tribes that live in voluntary isolation in what is described as one of the world's most biodiverse locations on the planet.