Archive for the ‘policy’ Category
« Older Entries | Newer Entries »Where might farmers turn for help with climate change?
Saturday, December 12th, 2009
In the Online First edition of Climatic Change, Tyler Tarnoczi and Fikret Berkes assess1,2 the sources and availability of information about climate adaptation to farmers in the Canadian provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta.
Farmers rely on several information sources for agricultural practices, which will likely be vital in helping food producers learn how to adapt to climate warming:
- social networks/experiential learning
- government
- industry (e.g., seed, machinery)
- producer and conservation organizations
- media
Here’s what they found…
Posted in climate adaptation, communication and framing, food and agriculture, nature and culture, policy | No Comments »
Ecosystem stewardship: sustainability strategies for a rapidly changing planet
Saturday, December 12th, 2009
That’s the title of a new article1,2 by Terry Chapin and colleagues in a forthcoming issue of Trends in Ecology and Evolution.
Human actions are having large and accelerating effects on the climate, environment and ecosystems of the Earth, thereby degrading many ecosystem services. This unsustainable trajectory demands a dramatic change in human relationships with the environment and life-support system of the planet. Here, we address recent developments in thinking about the sustainable use of ecosystems and resources by society in the context of rapid and frequently abrupt change.
To deal with these challenges, they advocate “ecosystem stewardship,” which has three core principles. Here are excerpts of these principles (slightly condensed/adapted by me); please check out the paper for details:
Posted in climate adaptation, nature and culture, policy, risk analysis, solutions, sustainable development | No Comments »
Innovative ideas for financing home energy efficiency
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
Let’s face it, how many people have a spare $10k lying around for a new furnace? Not me, and I could use a new furnace.
Home weatherization and efficiency upgrades can make a big difference in U.S. carbon emissions. As we saw in a previous post, American households (including personal transportation) are responsible for
- 38% of the overall US carbon emissions
- 8% of global emissions
- more emissions of any single country except China
Unfortunately, there’s a big disconnect between things we can do to to save home energy and the ability for folks to pay for these improvements. New insulation, solar hot water, solar photovoltaics, high-efficiency furnaces: Take your pick….Each can cost $10k or more.
Fortunately, there are a lot of creative ideas coming to the rescue to help people defray these up-front costs:
- Municipalities can issue bonds that homeowners can borrow from to pay the up-front costs of improvements. The costs of these improvements are then payed back over an extended periods of time through raised property taxes. Homeowners effectively get a zero-interest loan from their cities.
- Banks can issue higher mortgages that include up-front costs for major energy efficiency improvements. These added costs are then spread out over the life of the mortgage, resulting in manageable monthly payments for homeowners.
- Or, the federal government can simply reimburse people for part of the costs of improvements. The so-called “Cash for Caulkers” program reported today by CNN is an example.
These kinds of programs make a lot of sense and have the potential to be game changers, along with helping Americans transition to electric vehicles as soon as possible.
Related post: Behavioral changes at home can have big impacts on U.S. emissions
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Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nicksee/ / CC BY-NC 2.0
Tags: energy efficiency
Posted in energy, policy, solutions, sustainability, urban | 1 Comment »
Why don’t people engage climate change? Problem 4: Political-economic context
Saturday, November 7th, 2009
Prerequisite posts:
- Why don’t people engage climate change? Overview
- Why don’t people engage climate change? Problem 1: Environmental Literacy
- Why don’t people engage climate change? Problem 2: Communication
- Why don’t people engage climate change? Problem 3: Personal perceptions, values, and behaviors.
People often disengage from environmental issues because of a sense of disenfranchisement: “What kind of difference can I make? Not much, so why bother? We need big changes and soon. The power to do this is controlled by politicians, who are influenced (financially and otherwise) by Big Business often intent on blocking change.”
In a series of provocative articles in Energy Policy1, Gregory Unruh posed two questions to help us unravel forces at the root of this problem:
- If [renewable energy] technologies exist, are cost effective, and help minimize climate-forcing emissions, why aren’t they diffusing more rapidly?
- Furthermore, why aren’t government policies to promote them, about which there is substantial scientific and social consensus, more aggressive or effective?
The answer he suggests is carbon lock in. What is it? How has it become major inertia to change by reinforcing power structures in society, business, and politics?
Tags: carbon lock in
Posted in behavior, climate economics, policy, social science, technology, transportation | 6 Comments »
In this week’s issue of Nature: Solving deforestation in Madagascar by first solving social challenges
Thursday, November 5th, 2009
In another Nature article (subscription required), Anjali Nayar highlights the R.E.D.D. strategy of wealthy countries buying carbon offsets in developing countries by paying to prevent deforestation.
One of the big challenges is the issue of permanence–making sure the forests remain intact so that they serve as an effective carbon sink. Doing so in Madagascar will take more than money; it will require dealing with poverty and political instability.
An excerpt:
Non-governmental organizations such as the WCS and Conservation International are working through the turmoil. But even they are worried. “We could have a very difficult time selling carbon if this political situation becomes the norm,” says Lisa Gaylord, head of the WCS in Antananarivo, the country’s capital. “Why would an investor want to come here?”
The potential:
- 30-yr R.E.D.D. projects will prevent the release of 9 million tons of CO2e, similar to the emissions of 2 million cars in the US.
- Money from R.E.D.D. projects could total $5 million/yr, funding health and development projects to reduce poverty.
The challenges:
- 85% of the population lives below $2/day
- Slash and burn agriculture is common to cultivate rice, but rapid productivity declines means that farmers must carve deeper into the forests every few years.
- Forests had declined form 90% to 15% of Madagascar’s land area by 2005.
- The recent military-backed coup led to an increase in illegal logging and wildlife harvests. Government police are doing little to stop what’s being called a logging free-for-all.
- R.E.D.D. is at risk of losing funding because international donors are not convinced illegal harvests can be controlled. Loss of funding further impedes the ability to patrol against illegal harvests.
- Without R.E.D.D. funding, more people are returning to slash and burn agriculture.
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wggyfrog/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Posted in nature and culture, policy, sustainable development | 1 Comment »
In this week’s issue of Nature: Brazil hopes to lead developing nations by example
Thursday, November 5th, 2009
In this week’s Nature (subscription required), Jeff Tollefson describes how Brazil is talking big greenhouse gas reductions—possibly as much as 40% by 2020:
- 2/3 coming from reducing deforestation by 80%.
- 1/3 coming from the energy, agriculture, and reforestation.
- Brazil is also warming up to the idea that foreign countries can offset their greenhouse gas emissions by investing in forest conservation.
One outstanding question is how forest conservation projects and carbon markets like R.E.D.D (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation in Developing countries) might affect indigenous land rights.
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/visionshare/ / CC BY-NC 2.0
Posted in nature and culture, policy, sustainable development | No Comments »
Economists agree on climate warming but are still stuck on how much it costs
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
A new policy brief, Economists and Climate Change: Consensus and Open Questions, from the Institute for Policy Integrity (NYU School of Law) is getting a lot of headlines today.
Most reports are picking up on the statistics:
- 84% or economists surveyed agree that global warming represents a serious risk to the U.S (7.6% are neutral, 5.6% disagree, and 2.8 % have no opinion).
- 86% believed that agriculture would be the sector most at risk.
- 92% preferred market-based solutions like a cap-and-trade or carbon tax.
This is significant because it shows that most economists have aligned with the natural scientific consensus of the IPCC. Questions of whether climate is warming and its potential seriousness are over. The current problem is how we deal with it.
Today’s report shows there is still a point of contention with the economics of climate warming…
Posted in climate economics, policy | 1 Comment »
Why don’t people engage climate change? Overview
Sunday, November 1st, 2009
Last week, Pew published a new poll suggesting a declining number of Americans believe there is solid scientific evidence of climate warming and that warming is a serious problem.
In the next several posts, I’m going to address the question of why it appears that people don’t seem to engage climate change. This work is based on research for a talk I gave a few days ago.
Helping people understand and become active in dealing with climate change is challenging, but it’s also an incredibly fascinating interdisciplinary enterprise. You’ll see that disciplines across the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities are needed for this conversation.
And you’ll see some things that are counterintuitive and may surprise you.
I’m going to consider five major problems contributing to this challenge, shown in order of what I consider to be increasing difficulty to deal with:
Posted in behavior, climate change science, climate skeptics deniers and contrarians, environmental literacy, higher education, nature and culture, policy | 5 Comments »
Calling out and discrediting climate change contrarianism
Friday, October 30th, 2009
Several folks have asked me about climate change skeptics/deniers/contrarians. Why does the media give them air time, and why are they considered legitimate sources of information?
Many have argued recently that Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner’s new book, SuperFreakonomics, is the most recent version of contrarianism disguised as balanced analysis of climate change:
(1) Eric Pooley, a columnist with Bloomberg, was one of the folks to make the initial call out the day the book hit store shelves.
(2) Next came Paul Krugman’s NY Times blog, further calling out Levitt and Dubner as contrarians with a series of hard-hitting blog posts, including this one.
(3) David Roberts at Grist then added comparisons to the longstanding climate warming skeptic, Freeman Dyson, taking some serious shots at the media (sorry Jon Stewart fans, you may not like what you hear).
(4) In one of his longest posts ever, Joe Romm at ClimateProgress (who was also one of the vocal folks initially calling out Leavitt and Dubner) picked up Roberts’ and Krugman’s analyses yesterday and examined further the two questions above, showing how and why the media often enables these folks (with more bad news for Jon Stewart fans).
(5) In a letter yesterday at RealClimate, scientist Raymond T. Pierrehumbert (one of Levitt’s colleagues at the University of Chicago) shows how easy it would have been to get the science right in SuperFreakonomics.
Related post: SuperFreakonomics ignites a SuperStorm of criticism
Posted in climate change science, climate skeptics deniers and contrarians, policy | No Comments »
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