Rhonda and I have gotten to talking, and it turns out that despite living on opposite sides of the country, our neighborhoods have a lot in common. She lives in the Bayview area of San Francisco, CA and I’m living in Edgewood, just east of downtown in Atlanta, GA.

We thought it would make for a cool project to talk about the ups and downs of trying to live sustainably in our different cities.

This week, we’re taking a look at development and how it’s affecting our areas. Later on this week, Rhonda is going to do a brief overview of the planned redevelopment project for Bayview, specifically focusing on the 4000 page Environmental Impact Report.

Here in Atlanta, I’m digging in to see how the economy is affecting development of the 22-mile Beltline and taking a look at what the candidates in our upcoming December 1st runoff election have to say about the proposed system of light rail, trails, and planned development.

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For the 193 national delegations gathering in Copenhagen for the U.N. Climate Change Conference in December, the reasons for concern about climate change vary widely. For delegations from low-lying island countries, the principal concern is rising sea level. For countries in southern Europe, climate change means less rainfall and more drought. For countries of East Asia and the Caribbean, more powerful storms and storm surges are a growing worry. This climate change conference is about all these things, and many more, but in a very fundamental sense, it is a conference about food security.

We need not go beyond ice melting to see that the world is in trouble on the food front. The melting of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets is raising sea level. If the Greenland ice sheet were to melt entirely, sea level would rise by 23 feet. Recent projections show that it could rise by up to 6 feet during this century.

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I’m probably going to irritate some people with this post.  I apologize in advance because that is not at all my intention.  For those readers that don’t think climate change is a real problem, I respect the fact that there is uncertainty in that science, but if the majority position of climate scientists is true, the stakes in terms of human suffering among the poor are too high not to act.  For those who think Organic farming is the answer, I’m not trying to argue the whole issue here - I just want to talk about the science associated with climate change and farming.  I have spent months reading the scientific literature on this topic.  That science points to some very specific changes in how we need to farm.  If those changes were compatible with Organic I’d be a big promoter.  The short answer is “Organic farming is not the best option from a climate change point of view.”

I know this sounds like heresy in the “Green Blogosphere,” but before you react, please read on.  I agree in advance that the Organic/non-Organic discussion is much broader than climate change.  In fairness, climate change was never something that “Organic” was designed to address either during its origins in the early 20th century or during the development of the USDA Organic rules between 1990 and 2000.  I have no desire to get in the way of Organic growers making a living (including my good friends who grow Organic of the old school category) or get in the way of Organic customers getting what they want.    I simply believe that it is critical that we, the declining subset of people who take climate change seriously, be accurately informed about this issue.  If we believe we “have the answer” for farming when that answer is wrong, that keeps us from continuing to find the real answer.

Focusing on the Major Crops

Because it would be far too complex to discuss this question for all crops,  I’ll only be talking about the “carbon footprint” of the major row crops (see the pie chart above) - the wheat, corn, hay, barley, oats, corn, soybeans, hay, oats, dry beans, lentils… that make up the bulk of our calorie intake, our vegetable protein intake, and our animal feeds for meat and dairy.  Those crops also make up the vast majority of farmed land, so they are what matters for climate change.  Fruit and vegetable crops are extremely important for health and food enjoyment, but not much for climate change.  Organic today is heavily weighted to the fruit and vegetable segment and beyond that, it is extremely small. Actually, all of Organic only represents 2.6MM acres ( ~0.7%  of US cropland), so it has almost no effect on climate either way. This is only a discussion about the widely held opinion that Organic would help in a climate change sense.

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Yesterday, Chrysler/Fiat’s new CEO Sergio Marchionne presented the 5-year business plan he hopes will save Chrysler, and bring Fiat back to the US market for the first time in nearly 30 years. The company presented its plan during a live, seven-hour-long marathon webcast, which was notable for two things: first, a virtually unprecedented willingness to discuss future product, and, second, the conspicuous absence of New Chrysler’s much-ballyhooed ENVI electric-vehicle division.

What happened to the Dodge EV? Can we expect some innovative green tech from Marchionne’s new Dodge product future? The depressing reality, after the jump.

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However, is it changing its stance out of international moral pressure or a major financial incentive (recent deal) in the US? And who is to benefit the most from this shift?

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Darby Nelson, a member of a Minnesota state panel that advises the Legislature on fish, game and wildlife habitat spending, is a classic conservationist.

Almost 40 years after the first Earth Day, the term environmentalist is in some disrepute. Once a badge of honor for public-spirited citizens seeking to protect and clean up air, land, water and fish and wildlife, the word is now often associated with special interest politics. Is it time somehow to restore the term to its original associations or to choose another, like conservationist?

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The International Day of Climate Action last Saturday saw the power of grassroots activism leveraged by new media and social networking. Through an online and viral campaign, Bill Mckibben’s climate action group 350.org inspired an international response of more than 5,200 events in 181 countries. Hailed as the “most widespread day of environmental action in the planet’s history,” the action focused on a single number: 350. That’s the level in parts-per-million (ppm) many scientists now say is the safe level of CO2 in the atmosphere to avoid the worst consequences of climate change.

Focusing on that single number represents both the genius and the possible Achilles heal of the such a grassroots effort.

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A wise Nebraska farmer I know taught me this saying: “It’s what you know for certain that keeps you from learning.”   This principle is at the core of why certain groups and entities are rejecting good science.

As a scientist, and particularly as a scientist involved in agricultural and environmental issues, I’m increasingly aware of this trend.  In some cases this involves open hostility to science, in others it is just a matter of ignoring the scientific input. What is disturbing is how many different “voices” are in this unlikely “coalition” and the extent to which they are coloring the views of the broader society  (as seen in the recent Pew survey of American attitudes about climate change). 

At acknowledged risk of offending people, I will try to describe factions in the groups that tend to reject things that science would tell them.  I know that what I am talking about does not apply to everyone, or even most people in these groups, but it is still a potent force in our society. 

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If only there was a vaccine.

Joe Biden is well-known for his goofball status of saying exactly the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time in, what we have to assume, is a genetic predisposition to unwittedness.

Take, for instance, yesterday’s announcement that Fisker Automotive would be purchasing a shuttered Delaware GM plant for the future production of Fisker’s upcoming Project Nina plug-in hybrid—the more reasonably priced sister car of Fisker’s flagship $80,000 Karma.

During that announcement Biden—who’s home state is Delaware—waxed on about how the plant will bring jobs back to the area and is exactly what we need to get our manufacturing sector back on line. But he just couldn’t hold himself back at the end of his speech, saying “imagine when this factory, when the floor we’re standing on right now is making 100,000 plug-in hybrid sedans, coupes and crossovers every single year.”

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The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press released results of a major survey tracking what people believe about “Global Warming.”  It is not encouraging!  Across age, gender, race, political affiliation, and religion there have been declines in the number of people who believe that human activity is involved and increases in the number of people who don’t think it is happening.  My own demographic (white, male, 54 years old, political Independent, Evangelical Christian) is among the most skeptical, though the Baby Boom slightly bucks the trend for age.  Some friends and I are working on a strategy to challenge the Church on this issue.

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Last Monday the popular show “CSI: Miami” ran a segment in which a young woman dies and it turns out to be because of a GMO corn developed by a rogue company called “Bixton Organic Foods.”  In the plot, the company willingly puts people at risk.  This fictional scenario bears no plausible tie to reality, but it fits well with the simplistic, good guys/bad guys image in the Myth that many people believe about farming.  To see how it feels to be the brunt of a distortion like this, I recommend you read a post from a real corn farmer.  

So why is it possible for CBS writers to generate fictional “drama” about the “danger of GMO” when in fact GMO technology has been used with complete safety for more than a decade on a gigantic scale?  (Having witnessed first-hand the thought and care that went into developing this technology over the past 30 years, I’m not surprised by that safety record).  There is an abundance of good information available about this technology including many confirmations of its safety by panel after panel of highly qualified, science and medical experts around the world.  I think the reason that the fear of GMO persists in certain extreme circles is the same reason that there are still “birthers” and people who are sure that health reform will lead to “death panels.”  Its not that there is much overlap between these demographics but rather that the same mechanism of “selective knowing” is involved.

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Have you seen the comic art for the 2010 Union of Concerned Scientists Scientific Integrity Cartoons? Shown above is a cartoon about science and the Endangered Species Act.

The entire calendar shows how “the absurdity of political interference in science is ripe for lampooning-and serves as a constant reminder of how vigilant we must be in defending science from politics.” The comics also highlight the need for the new administration and Congress to create a thriving federal scientific enterprise.

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Norway committed to cut their greenhouse gas emissions 40% by 2020 this week. This is the most ambitious goal of any rich nation to date.

Norway’s prime minister Jens Stoltenberg (just re-elected) is meeting the requests of many developing nations and environmental NGOs with this commitment.

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A new report released today says that if we shift our economy — to a greener, low-carbon economy — we will have more jobs, not fewer.

Earlier this week, Tony Blair (former prime minister of the UK) and the Climate Group reported that if we worked to avoid climate change we’d create 10 million new jobs by 2020 — worldwide. Another recent study by Greenpeace and the European Renewable Energy Council says that such a shift could increase employment in the EU by 2.7 million jobs by 2030.

One more report, released today by the Global Climate Network (an alliance of nine influential think tanks) comes to similar conclusions.

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There’s one thing I don’t get about how Cap and Trade works. How carbon emissions would still come down, whether the initial allowances were auctioned or free. Most environmentalists are up in arms over “polluting industry getting free allowances” while I don’t object to anything that sweetens the deal. But would it work?

So I contacted Harvard’s Robert N. Stavins to get a very simple concrete example. He has authored much referenced works on environmental policy design and Cap and Trade legislation draws heavily on his work. Here’s his analogy in which TV or video gaming stands in for carbon emissions. First, you set a Cap. The limit will be 4 hours total, with a Cap of one hour max for each child. Here’s how he put it.

“If I put in place a system whereby you have to have an allowance for every hour of video games tonight, it does not matter whether you bought it or got it for free, it still limits you to one hour.  Period.”

He added: “And if you are allowed to trade these allowances with others, you have the same incentives to sell your allowance if you don’t want to play any video games tonight; or to buy more if you want to play more than one hour, regardless of whether you had to buy or got for free the first one.”

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The key difference between Cap and Trade and a carbon tax is that a carbon tax controls just the cost of pollution - only a cap limits the quantity.

The “Cap” limits emissions by fossil companies

The Cap in Cap and Trade is the only mechanism for ensuring a total limit to carbon emissions. A Cap is set for the fossil industries as a whole. The Cap on emissions at point-of-entry sources (oil pipelines, coal fields and coal-fired power stations) in the current Cap and Trade bill limits total carbon.

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Climate Action Will Pay for Itself, and More.

The United Nations (UN) stated earlier this month that the cost of avoiding climate change was at least 1% of global GDP — $500-600 billion dollars. Despite this major cost, Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of the UK, and The Climate Group, presented a report to the UN yesterday saying that a strong climate deal will “boost growth in all major economies & create millions of new jobs.”

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A new survey of Asians finds that they want a strong international climate agreement, and they want a few key world leaders to step up to the plate to make it happen.

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