Green Sanctuary/Climate Change Group    7/27/2010

ClimateScienceWatch.org interview with Stephen H. Schneider on his "Expert Credibility in Climate Change" study.  Dr. Schneider was Melvin and Joan Lane Professor for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies, Professor, Department of Biology, and Senior Fellow, Woods Institute for the Environment, at Stanford University.  (9 min)

Climate Change and National Security

350 Is the Most Important Number on the Planet

In December of 2007, NASA's Jim Hansen gave a slide show at the American Geophysical Union annual meeting in San Francisco.  He'd been thinking about what it meant that we'd just come through a summer of very rapid ice melt in the high Arctic, and that researchers were reporting "ahead of schedule" changes in dozen other of the earth's big physical features—melting glaciers, acidifying oceans and so on.

Combined with reams of paleo-climate data, his team believed they now had enough information to finally draw a red line for the planet:  when atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide were above 350 ppm, they said, global warming would be dangerously out of control.  In fact, they said in the abstract of the paper they soon published, above 350 you couldn't have a planet "similar to the one on which civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted."

  — Bill McKibben Click here to see and hear "Three Five 0" Anthem, composed and performed by a UU Minister.

Click here to read about the Massachusetts Climate Action Network (MCAN).  MCAN is a coalition of locally organized groups fighting the climate crisis.

Jeremy Grantham:  Everything You Need to Know About Global Warming in 5 Minutes

Wikipedia:  Jeremy Grantham is an American investor and Chairman of the Board of Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo (GMO), a Boston-based asset management firm.  GMO is one of the largest managers of such funds in the world, having more than US $107 billion under management as of December 2009.  Grantham is regarded as a highly knowledgeable investor in various stock, bond, and commodity markets, and is particularly noted for his prediction of various bubbles.  He has been a vocal critic of various governmental responses to the Global Financial Crisis.  Grantham started one of the world's first index funds in the early 1970s.

Everything You Need to Know About Global Warming in 5 Minutes

1. The amount of carbon dioxide (CO) in the atmosphere, after at least several hundred thousand years of remaining within a constant range, started to rise with the advent of the Industrial Revolution.  It has increased by almost 40% and is rising each year.  This is certain and straightforward.
2. One of the properties of CO2 is that it creates a greenhouse effect and, all other things being equal, an increase in its concentration in the atmosphere causes the Earth’s temperature to rise.  This is just physics.  (The amount of other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, such as methane, has also risen steeply since industrialization, which has added to the impact of higher CO2 levels.)
3. Several other factors, like changes in solar output, have major influences on climate over millennia, but these effects have been observed and measured.  They alone cannot explain the rise in the global temperature over the past 50 years.
4. The uncertainties arise when it comes to the interaction between greenhouse gases and other factors in the complicated climate system.  It is impossible to be sure exactly how quickly or how much the temperature will rise. But, the past can be measured.  The temperature has indeed steadily risen over the past century while greenhouse gas levels have increased.  But the forecasts still range very widely for what will happen in the future, ranging from a small but still potentially harmful rise of 1 to 2 degrees Fahrenheit to a potentially disastrous level of +6 to +10 degrees Fahrenheit within this century.  A warmer atmosphere melts glaciers and ice sheets, and causes global sea levels to rise.  A warmer atmosphere also contains more energy and holds more water, changing the global occurrences of storms, floods, and other extreme weather events.
5. Skeptics argue that this wide range of uncertainty about future temperature changes lowers the need to act:  “Why spend money when you’re not certain?”  But since the penalties can rise at an accelerating rate at the tail, a wider range implies a greater risk (and a greater expected value of the costs.)  This is logically and mathematically rigorous and yet is still argued.
6. Pascal asks the question:  What is the expected value of a very small chance of an infinite loss?  And, he answers, “Infinite.”  In this example, what is the cost of lowering CO2 output and having the long-term effect of increasing CO2 turn out to be nominal?  The cost appears to be equal to foregoing, once in your life, six months’ to one year’s global growth – 2% to 4% or less.  The benefits, even with no warming, include:  energy independence from the Middle East; more jobs, since wind and solar power and increased efficiency are more labor-intensive than another coal-fired power plant; less pollution of streams and air; and an early leadership role for the U.S. in industries that will inevitably become important.  Conversely, what are the costs of not acting on prevention when the results turn out to be serious:  costs that may dwarf those for prevention; and probable political destabilization from droughts, famine, mass migrations, and even war.  And, to Pascal’s real point, what might be the cost at the very extreme end of the distribution:  definitely life changing, possibly life threatening.
7. The biggest cost of all from global warming is likely to be the accumulated loss of biodiversity.  This features nowhere in economic cost-benefit analysis because, not surprisingly, it is hard to put a price on that which is priceless.
8. A special word on the right-leaning think tanks:  As libertarians, they abhor the need for government spending or even governmental leadership, which in their opinion is best left to private enterprise.  In general, this may be an excellent idea.  But global warming is a classic tragedy of the commons – seeking your own individual advantage, for once, does not lead to the common good, and the problem desperately needs government leadership and regulation.  Sensing this, these think tanks have allowed their drive for desirable policy to trump science.  Not a good idea.
9. Also, I should make a brief note to my own group – die hard contrarians.  Dear fellow contrarians, I know the majority is usually wrong in the behavioral jungle of the stock market.  And Heaven knows I have seen the soft scientists who lead finance theory attempt to bully their way to a uniform acceptance of the bankrupt theory of rational expectations and market efficiency.  But climate warming involves hard science.  The two most prestigious bastions of hard science are the National Academy in the U.S. and the Royal Society in the U.K., to which Isaac Newton and the rest of that huge 18th century cohort of brilliant scientists belonged.  The presidents of both societies wrote a note recently, emphasizing the seriousness of the climate problem and that it was man- made.  Both societies have also made full reports on behalf of their membership stating the same.  Do we believe the whole elite of science is in a conspiracy?  At some point in the development of a scientific truth, contrarians risk becoming flat earthers.
10. Conspiracy theorists claim to believe that global warming is a carefully constructed hoax driven by scientists desperate for … what?  Being needled by nonscientific newspaper reports, by blogs, and by right-wing politicians and think tanks?  Most hard scientists hate themselves or their colleagues for being in the news.  Being a climate scientist spokesman has already become a hindrance to an academic career, including tenure.  I have a much simpler but plausible “conspiracy theory”:  that fossil energy companies, driven by the need to protect hundreds of billions of dollars of profits, encourage obfuscation of the inconvenient scientific results.
11. Why are we arguing the issue?  Challenging vested interests as powerful as the oil and coal lobbies was never going to be easy.  Scientists are not naturally aggressive defenders of arguments.  In short, they are conservatives by training:  never, ever risk overstating your ideas.  The skeptics are far, far more determined and expert propagandists to boot.  They are also well funded.  That smoking caused cancer was obfuscated deliberately and effectively for 20 years at a cost of hundreds of thousands of extra deaths.  We know that for certain now, yet those who caused this fatal delay have never been held accountable.  The profits of the oil and coal industry make tobacco’s resources look like a rounding error.  In some notable cases, the obfuscators of global warming actually use the same “experts” as the tobacco industry did!  The obfuscators’ simple and direct motivation – making money in the near term, which anyone can relate to – combined with their resources and, as it turns out, propaganda talents, have meant that we are arguing the science long after it has been nailed down.  I, for one, admire them for their P.R. skills, while wondering, as always:  “Have they no grandchildren?”
12. Almost no one wants to change.  The long-established status quo is very comfortable, and we are used to its deficiencies.  But for this problem we must change.  This is never easy.
13. Almost everyone wants to hear good news.  They want to believe that dangerous global warming is a hoax.  They, therefore, desperately want to believe the skeptics.  This is a problem for all of us.

This was extracted from the July 2010 GMO Quartly Letter.

Study Reaffirms Broad Scientific Understanding of Climate Change,
Questions Media’s Reliance on Tiny Group of Less-Credibile Scientists for "Balance"

Here, we use an extensive dataset of 1,372 climate researchers and their publication and citation data to show that 1) 97-98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; and 2) the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of the convinced researchers.

That is the conclusion of an important first-of-its-kind study published June 21st in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, "Expert credibility in climate change."

The findings will come as no surprise whatsoever to 97% to 98% of scientists — but it could theoretically open the eyes of those in the status quo media who keep suggesting the ‘experts’ they cite that keep pushing anti-science disinformation are somehow close to being equal in number, credibility, or expertise to the broad community of climate scientists, thereby implying serious disagreements among mainstream scientists.

Read More

ClimateScienceWatch.org interview with Dr. Schneider on his "Expert Credibility in Climate Change" study.

Heat Waves Could be Common by 2039 in U.S., Finds Stanford Study

Devastating heat waves that result in fatalities and crop losses may increasingly become a common occurrence in the United States over the next three decades, according to a team of Stanford University researchers.

"Using a large suite of climate model experiments, we see a clear emergence of much more intense, hot conditions in the U.S. within the next three decades," Noah Diffenbaugh, the lead author of the study, told the Stanford Report.

"In the next 30 years, we could see an increase in heat waves like the one now occurring in the eastern United States or the kind that swept across Europe in 2003 that caused tens of thousands of fatalities," said Diffenbaugh, a center fellow at Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment.  "Those kinds of severe heat events also put enormous stress on major crops like corn, soybean, cotton and wine grapes, causing a significant reduction in yields."

"I did not expect to see anything this large within the next three decades.  This was definitely a surprise," said Diffenbaugh.

"It's up to the policymakers to decide the most appropriate action, but our results suggest that limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius does not guarantee that there won't be damaging impacts from climate change," he said.

Read More

The Latest on the BP Oil Spill as of July 30, 2010

Effort to Permanently Plug Well Is Progressing

Thad W. Allen, the retired Coast Guard admiral who leads the government’s spill response, said Thursday that BP could start its “static kill” plan — the first in a two-step process to choke the well off with mud and cement — by this weekend, ahead of the scheduled start time on Monday.  The decision to speed up would depend on BP’s progress in completing a relief well that will eventually pump mud and cement into the bottom of the reservoir and permanently seal it, Admiral Allen said.  That would be followed by injections of mud and cement from the bottom using a relief well.

Birds Released at Louisiana Wildlife Refuge

State and federal biologists released 13 laughing gulls, two royal terns and one sandwich tern at Rockefeller State Wildlife Refuge, after rescuing and rehabilitating them from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.  The refuge, in Grand Chenier, La., was selected by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and the federal Fish and Wildlife Service as the release site because it had not been affected by oil and contained natural habitat for these species.  To date, more than 550 birds have been treated and released in the rescue and recovery effort.

Read More

On July 7 the federal government opened a new web site, RestoreTheGulf.com, for all news related to the oil spill.

Extreme Weather Events - with NOAA Map of Tennessee’s 1000-Year Deluge

The U.S. has had three extreme weather events in the last ten months.  Expert comment follows the three descriptions below.

Oklahoma

On June 14 Oklahoma City Micronet reported that a rainfall observation of 10.21" exceeded the 1-in-500 year rainfall total for a 12 hour period.  Moreover, the 9 inches that fell in 6 hours meets the requirements for a 1 in 500 year flood event.

Tennessee

The Tennessee deluge of 2010, aka Nashville’s ‘Katrina,’ was an off-the-charts extreme weather event that human-caused global warming set the table for and almost certainly made more intense.  15 Sites Had Rainfall Exceeding the Maximum Associated with Hurricane Katrina Landfall.

You may not understand just how unprecedented this superstorm was until you see this map from the Office of Hydrological Development at NOAA/NWS.  Look at the red streak, which is the area hit by a greater than 1000-year deluge.  And look at how much of western Tennessee was slammed with a greater than 500 year downpour.

Read More on Tennessee’s 1000-Year Deluge.

The Unitarian Universalist Association has set up a fund that is a partnership among the Unitarian Universalist Association, the Mid-South District, the Thomas Jefferson District, FUUN and the Greater Nashville UU Church.  Its purpose is to bring practical financial assistance, ministry, and spiritual care to those affected by the tragic floods.  You can donate funds here.

Georgia

Last September there was an extreme weather event in Georgia.  You can read a Weather Channel expert on Georgia’s record-smashing global-warming-type deluge here.  Usually during September, when there’s wild weather, including precipitation extremes, it’s as a result of a hurricane or tropical storm.  Not in 2009.

Comment

Dr. Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and one of the country leading scientific authorities on climate change and extreme weather, comments:

"There is a systematic influence on all of these weather events now-a-days because of the fact that there is this extra water vapor lurking around in the atmosphere, [more] than there used to be, say 30 years ago.  It’s about a 4% extra amount, it invigorates the storms, it provides plenty of moisture for these storms, and it’s unfortunate that the public is not associating these with the fact that this is one manifestation of climate change.  And the prospects are that these kinds of things will only get bigger and worse in the future."

Read More of Joe Romm's interview with Dr. Trenberth.

Arctic Amplification:  More Cold and Snowy Winters in Europe, Eastern Asia, and Eastern North America

A warmer Arctic climate is influencing the air pressure at the North Pole and shifting wind patterns on our planet.  We can expect more cold and snowy winters in Europe, eastern Asia and eastern North America.

"Cold and snowy winters will be the rule, rather than the exception," says Dr James Overland of the NOAA/Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in the United States.  Dr Overland is at the International Polar Year Oslo Science Conference (IPY-OSC) to chair a session on polar climate feedbacks, amplification and teleconnections, including impacts on mid-latitudes.

Loss of sea ice causes major climate change

Continued rapid loss of sea ice will be an important driver of major change in the world's climate system in the years to come.

"While the emerging impact of greenhouse gases is an important factor in the changing Arctic, what was not fully recognised until now is that a combination of an unusual warm period due to natural variability, loss of sea ice reflectivity, ocean heat storage, and changing wind patterns working together has disrupted the memory and stability of the Arctic climate system, resulting in greater ice loss than earlier climate models predicted," says Dr Overland.

Arctic Death Spiral
Naval Postgrad School’s Maslowski "Projects Ice-Free Fall by 2016 (+/- 3 yrs)"

One of the country’s leading experts on the Arctic projects it will be essentially ice-free (in the fall) decades ahead of the projections of the climate models used in the 2007 IPCC report.  And that has quite dire implications and consequences for the likely future rate of climate change compared to those models.

The chart is from Wieslaw Maslowski of the Naval Postgraduate School in a presentation at the March State of the Arctic Meeting.

If Maslowski is anywhere near correct, then this key aspect of human-caused climate change will have happened staggeringly faster than the IPCC and its models had projected — with quite dire implications and consequences for the likely future rate of climate change compared to the models.

As a 2008 study led by David Lawrence of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) concluded:

We find that simulated western Arctic land warming trends during rapid sea ice loss are 3.5 times greater than secular 21st century climate-change trends.  The accelerated warming signal penetrates up to 1500 km inland.

In other words, if it continues, the recent trend in sea ice loss may triple overall Arctic warming, causing large emissions in carbon dioxide and methane from the tundra this century (for a review of recent literature on the tundra, see "Science stunner:  Vast East Siberian Arctic Shelf methane stores destabilizing and venting").

Read More

Eat Vegetables, Cut Fossil Fuels, Aid Planet - UN Study

"How the world is fed and fueled will in large part define development in the 21st century," said the 112-page report by the International Panel for Sustainable Resource Management.

"Agricultural production accounts for a staggering 70 percent of the global freshwater consumption, 38 percent of the total land use and 14 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions," said Achim Steiner, head of the U.N. Environment Programme.

The report said consumers could help by cutting down on meat consumption and use of fossil fuels in heating or travel.  "Animal products are important because more than half of the world's crops are used to feed animals, not people," it said.

"A substantial reduction of impacts would only be possible with a substantial worldwide diet change, away from animal products."

BP Skipped Critical Testing Hours Before Explosion

New revelations about BP's operations on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig on the day of the explosion are being described as the smoking gun that proves the oil giant's culpability in the disaster.

BP hired a reputable oilfield service company to test the strength of cement linings on the well, but then sent the company's workers home 11 hours before the explosion on April 20 — "without performing a final check that a top cementing company executive called 'the only test that can really determine the actual effectiveness' of the well's seal," reports the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

BP has also come under fire for its safety procedures — crewmember Mike WIlliams told "60 Minutes" that despite damage to the critical blowout preventer, BP ordered the rig operator, Transocean Ltd., to ignore a critical safety measure during the sealing of the well.  By failing to use drilling mud, a heavy liquid that keeps oil and gas from coming back up the pipe, to seal the well, BP saved money but may have caused the explosion.

Five Local Ideas Influencing National Policy

1. PACE.  Born in Berkeley, Calif., Property Assessed Clean Energy programs are rewiring how homeowners pay for expensive renewable energy systems and efficiency upgrades by treating them as an ordinary neighborhood utility upgrade.  More than 20 states have laws in place to facilitate the program.
2. Household MPG.  If you sell a home in Austin, Texas, you need to have an energy audit performed.  Berkeley and a host of cities have moved or are moving in a similar direction.  The idea is to make energy efficiency part of the equation as you shop for a home.
3. Feed-in-tariffs.  In March Gainesville, Fla. replaced its renewable energy rebate program with a feed-in-tariff, guaranteeing the price of electricity generated from solar panels for the next 20 years.  Supporters say the tariff, which spreads the cost for renewable energy over all customers, offers a far more stable financial regime than a rebate program, the model for most utilities and which, in Gainesville, the tariff replaced.
4. The street plug.  Cities, pressed by pollution limits, are increasingly partnering with automakers to provide charging stations and other infrastructure to ease the transition to electric vehicles.  And we're not talking San Francisco, Boulder, Seattle and other "green" communities.
5. Congestion pricing.  Mayor Michael Bloomberg's plan to charge drivers for access to Manhattan during peak hours got slapped down by the state Assembly in 2008.  But the concept of charging drivers during peak travel times is showing signs of life on the West Coast, as San Francisco, San Diego and Orange County, Calif., explore options.

Forest Cover Declining Across New England; Group Urges New Protections

After more than 150 years of natural regrowth, forest cover is declining across all six New England states, threatening the region's landscape and chipping away at a natural buffer against global warming, according to a study released Tuesday by Harvard University's Laboratory for Ecological Research.

The study by Harvard Forest found that New England forests, having grown back after a spate of land clearings by European settlers, have come under increasing pressure from a new wave of commercial development, industrial use and invasive species.

Less than 20 percent of New England's 33 million acres of trees, waters and wetlands are permanently protected from development.

Climate Change and Food Security:  Irreversible Destiny?

Excerpt:  Henk-Jan Brinkman of the World Food Program, on how even the "small shocks" of the food and financial crisis can adversely affect children's health.  (2 min., 49 sec.)

                                                                                YouTube Video of R.E.M. Concert

It's the End of the World As We Know It - Oil Production Peak Much Sooner Than Expected

The permanent end of the era of cheap oil is coming as soon as next year, according to a raft of official reports that have made their way into energy media over the last few months.  Governments are now beginning to acknowledge the looming crisis.  Yet, perhaps because they waited too long to prevent it, leaders are not yet alerting the public.

The entire world economy is built on cheap oil.  A permanent oil production shortage will thus lead to The End of The World As We Know It.  What will come on the other side of this — will it be good or bad? 

Public Unaware.  Except for a few stories in financial pages such as London's Financial Times, this earth-shaking news has yet to reach the Mainstream Media.  While "Peak Oil" researchers have long warned of approaching oil shortages, the difference now is these dire warnings are being validated by the highest government and oil company officials.  Yet, no political leader has had the courage to make a major announcement to prepare the public for what lies ahead.

Climate Change Indicators in the United States

Collecting and interpreting environmental indicators play a critical role in our understanding of climate change and its causes.  An indicator represents the state of certain environmental conditions over a given area and a specified period of time.  Examples of climate change indicators include temperature, precipitation, sea level, and greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.

EPA's Climate Change Indicators in the United States (PDF) (80 pp, 13.3MB) report will help readers interpret a set of important indicators to better understand climate change.  The report presents 24 indicators, each describing trends related to the causes and effects of climate change.  It focuses primarily on the United States, but in some cases global trends are presented to provide context or a basis for comparison.  A four page Summary of Key Findings starts on page 4.

EPA adds:  "Considering that future warming projected for the 21st century is very likely to be greater than observed warming over the past century, indicators of climate change should only become more clear, numerous, and compelling."

Help Pass the Updated Bottle Bill!

The Bottle Bill is the state’s most successful recycling and litter prevention program.  Since the Bottle Bill's inception in 1983, over 30 billion containers have been redeemed, contributing to a healthier environment, cleaner and safer communities, and a stronger economy.  But to keep up with the times and consumers’ tastes, the bottle bill must be updated.  An Updated Bottle Bill would expand our container deposit system to include non-carbonated beverages such as water, iced tea, juice, and sports drinks.  It would decrease litter - and increase recycling.

An amazing 80% of beverages that are covered by the bottle bill are redeemed/recycled.  But unfortunately, only 22% of non-deposit containers are recycled – the rest become litter, clog our storm drains, or are thrown in the trash.

Updating our bottle bill will boost recycling, save our communities the cost associated with disposal and litter cleanup, and conserve valuable resources.  These plastic bottles are made of 99% petroleum - what an inappropriate waste to bury our valuable oil in landfills or burn it our or incinerators.

There are only three months left in this legislative session, and the bottle bill has yet to move out of its first committee.  Your call to your legislators will help move it along.

Contact your State Representative and State Senator and ask them to push for passage of the Updated Bottle Bill, H3515/S1480.

If you know who your legislators are, click here to contact them.

If you're unsure, click here

Ask your legislators to:

1. Commit to supporting the bill (if they haven’t already)
2. Contact leadership and ask them to move the bill, Ask house/senate leaders to move the bill to the floor for a vote!  If it doesn’t move soon, the bill will die.

We suggest you call, email, or fax them today!  Be sure to include your name and address.

Additional information:

H3515/S1480 would

1. expand the bottle bill to include water, sports drinks, flavored teas, juices, and other on the go beverages.
2. it would reestablish the Clean Environment Fund, taking forfeited deposits and using these funds to improve recycling and other environmental projects
3. would provide an industry-paid slight increase to redemption centers, who have not had a raise in 18 years.

This bill would not increase the deposit, and would not cost the state any money.  This bill would help reduce litter, increase recycling, and help municipalities reduce collection and cleanup fees.  There are no other bottle bill updates currently being considered by the legislature.

Notes:

Endorsed by Over 130 Cities and Towns, and by Advocacy Groups throughout the State.  Enacting the update would save our cities and towns significant amounts, from lowering disposal costs, litter collection costs, and storm drain cleaning, which are frequently blocked by littered containers.

Increases Recycling Rates:  Approximately 80% of bottle-bill-covered beverages are redeemed/recycled.  Only 22% of NON-redeemable beverages are recycled.

Complements Curbside Recycling:  Curbside is very effective for beverages consumed at home.  But the majority of single-serving containers are consumed on-the-go, out of curbside’s reach.

Decreases Landfill Use:  The state is running out of landfill space.  The 1 billion containers that we send to landfills every year would fill Fenway Park to overflowing.

Saves Energy, Saves Oil:  Most of the containers under the update are made of PET, 99% of which is petroleum.  Recycled PET is badly needed for textiles.  Had these bottles been recycled, we would have saved the energy equivalent of about 48,000 barrels of oil.

Strong Public Support:  The public is very supportive of the bottle bill, seeing the positive effect that it’s had on the environment.

Producer Responsibility:  Bearing the cost of a product's waste should be the responsibility of beverage producers and consumers, not taxpayers and communities.  The bottle bill is a model for this kind of sustainable financing.

Creates Green Jobs:  Gains in employment have been shown in nearly every state that updates their deposit system.  Many of these jobs come in the recycling sector, which now produces important – and sustainable – raw materials to be used in manufacturing.

Keeps Current With Consumer Habits:  The original bottle bill was never meant to be non-reactive to consumer trends.  Now that 1/3 of our containers are not covered by the 27-year old law, we need to update it.

Revenue Positive for the State:  Unclaimed deposits are maintained by the state.  The cost of updating the bottle will not require any funding.

Supports the Redemption Centers:  The bill includes provisions to increase the handling fee (not paid by the state).  These small, often families owned business have not had an increase in handling fees in 18 years.  They are currently experiencing huge increases in operating costs; many of them have been forced to close.

Provides Relief for Small Stores:  The update allows small stores to opt out of taking returns if there’s a nearby redemption center.

No Additional Costs for Supermarkets:  Almost all large supermarkets have more than enough capacity in their "reverse vending machines" to accept the increase in containers.  Neither additional machines nor floorspace would be required.

The Climate-Friendly Gardener
A Guide to Combating Global Warming from the Ground Up

The millions of Americans with a lawn or garden know that even small shifts in weather can affect their outdoor plans.  Unchecked global warming, however, could force gardeners to deal with more droughts and floods, and a profusion of pests and weeds.  The Climate-Friendly Gardener:  A Guide to Combating Global Warming from the Ground Up, shows you how to reduce the impact of climate change in your own backyard.

What Is Geoengineering and Why Is It Considered a Climate Change Solution?

175 scientists and other interested folks (including companies looking to profit from geoengineering) gathered in the Asilomar conference center near the end of March to try to repeat the success of molecular biologists who gathered there in 1975 to reassure a skeptical public about genetic engineering.  Ultimately, the gathered would-be geoengineers released a statement calling for, among other things, "further research in all relevant disciplines to better understand and communicate whether additional strategies to moderate future climate change are, or are not, viable, appropriate and ethical."

The list of unintended consequences of human manipulation of natural systems is long:  concrete jungles creating urban heat islands, vast oceanic dead zones resulting from fertilizer use on inland agricultural fields, and intentionally introduced species, such as the cane toad in Australia, that then wreak havoc on ecosystems, among others.  Whether the idea is to mimic a volcano's cooling impact on climate by continuously pumping sulfates into the stratosphere or to brighten clouds via crewless ships spewing water vapor, possible problems range from shutting down rainfall in certain regions to unilateral declarations of war.

As the Royal Society noted in its 2009 report on geoengineering:  "The safest and most predictable method of moderating climate change is to take early and effective action to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.  No geoengineering method can provide an easy or readily acceptable alternative solution to the problem of climate change."

Nevertheless, humans are already managing the climate, even with actions intended to improve the environment.  A recent decision to cut sulfate pollution from cargo ships will, in effect, further warm the globe as more cooling particles are removed from the sky.

ScientificAmerican.com spoke to climate modeler and geoengineering expert Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University, who coined the term "solar radiation management" for efforts to dim the sun (though he now prefers "climate intervention"), about why humans might want to get smart about planetary management.

Ocean Acidification:  'Evil Twin of Global Warming' Threatens World's Oceans, Scientists Warn

ScienceDaily (Apr. 1, 2010) — The rise in human emissions of carbon dioxide is driving fundamental and dangerous changes in the chemistry and ecosystems of the world's oceans, international marine scientists have warned.

"Ocean conditions are already more extreme than those experienced by marine organisms and ecosystems for millions of years," the researchers say in the latest issue of the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution.

"This emphasises the urgent need to adopt policies that drastically reduce CO2 emissions."

Psychology of Climate Change Communication

Columbia University's Center for Research on Environmental Decisions has released a primer on the "Psychology of Climate Change Communication."

Click here to see the Guide.

The upper safety limit for atmospheric CO2 is 350 parts per million.  Atmospheric CO2 levels have stayed higher than 350 ppm since early 1988.  Click here to see a graph that shows why the monthly number is usually different from the yearly average.

Green Sanctuary/Climate Change Group

The Green Sanctuary Group is exploring what it would take to become a "Green Sanctuary."  More information on the Green Sanctuaries movement can be found at UU Ministry for Earth.

Please stop by the social justice table at coffee/friendship hour if you have an interest in working on issues concerning global climate change or email gogreen@firstparish.info .  If you want to write a letter to a politician calling for social action, names and addresses of representatives are here. 

— David Landskov

Mindful Eating

Lilian Cheung on Mindful Eating
Eating is as much about mind as matter.  That’s one of the main points of Savor:  Mindful Eating, Mindful Life by Thich Nhat Hanh and Lilian Cheung.  Cheung, 57, is a lecturer and director of health promotion and communication at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Click here to see a Word file with a list of restaurants in the Arlington area where you can dine vegetarian.

Forks Over Knives Coming in Summer 2010
The feature film Forks Over Knives examines the claim that most, if not all, of the degenerative diseases that afflict us can be controlled, or even reversed, by rejecting our present menu of animal-based and processed foods.
More About the Film

The video below is about Melanie Joy's new book Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs and Wear Cows.

In the 40-minute video to the right, Neal Barnard MD discusses the science behind food addictions.  Chocolate, cheese, meat, and sugar release opiate-like substances during digestion.  Dr. Barnard shows how a plant-based diet helps one avoid problems caused by these addictions.

Dr. Barnard is the founder of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.  He spoke at the 2003 VegSource Healthy Lifestyle Expo.

This video is a presentation by Professor T. Colin Campbell, also at the 2003 VegSource Healthy Lifestyle Expo.  Dr. T. Colin Campbell is Professor of Nutritional Biochemistry at Cornell University and was principal director of the China Study.

In this 45-minute talk Campbell describes the research that led to his change from dairy rancher and animal-protein advocate to disease prevention researcher and vegan.

Food & Environmental Justice
Welcome to a delicious opportunity for you, your Unitarian Universalist congregation, and our entire Association!  This Food & Environmental Justice Study Guide is part of a new Association-wide effort to explore the hidden ways our food choices impact our communities and our world.

See choices for downloading the Food & Environmental Justice Study Guide.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle