Can Earth Hour Galvanize the global warming fight?

Every successful social movement has its defining images. Think of the civil rights movement, and the photos of protesters being attacked by police dogs and pummeled by high-pressure fire hoses. Or the Vietnam anti-war movement, and the video of body bags being beamed back to America's living rooms. Even environmentalism has its iconic images, like Cleveland's heavily polluted Cuyahoga River catching fire in the 1960s, smog wreathing Los Angeles's skyline during the next decade and even the stark hole in the ozone over Antarctica. To help galvanize public support — especially around a complex issue — the right picture really can be worth a thousand words.

When it comes to climate change, however, that picture hasn't yet been found. Hurricane Katrina's destruction, drowning polar bears, spreading deserts — these images are powerful in their own right, but they're not the sorts of pictures that can drive a movement. Precisely because global warming is so, well, global, potentially touching just about every corner of the world and every aspect of our lives, encapsulating it in a single image has proven elusive. You can't connect climate change to a natural disaster as simply as you can connect a napalm bomb, a running child and the war in Vietnam. That's made building and sustaining a movement against global warming so challenging. We can't see it yet, not quite — and we can't see its victims. But by the time we can, it will be too late.

That hasn't stopped environmental groups from trying, however. On Saturday at 8:30 pm local time — beginning on Chatham Island in New Zealand, one of the first places on Earth that the dawn strikes — towns and cities in over 80 countries across the world will shut off their lights for 60 minutes, to draw attention to climate change. The National Stadium in Beijing, the Great Pyramids in Egypt, the Empire State Building in New York and even the Strip in Las Vegas — all will go dark for an hour to raise awareness of climate change and show that there is a worldwide constituency out there eager for action. "This is the only event regarding climate change that is truly global," says Carter Roberts, the president of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in the U.S., which is coordinating the event. "Climate change is the most global of problems, and the global community needs to come together to solve it." (Read "Earth Hour '08: Did It Matter?"

This is the second year in a row that WWF has helped run a worldwide Earth Hour — the event began two years ago just in Australia) -- and participation has grown tremendously, from 400 cities in 2008 to some 4,000 this year. The image, at least, will be spectacular — monuments and skyscrapers switching off, a ring of darkness passing across the face of the planet. Though WWF is loosely overseeing Earth Hour, the protest — for lack of a better term — is a product of the age of social media, organized at the grassroots, with word spreading via Twitter and Facebook. "This is an open source thing," says WWF spokesperson Leslie Aun. "We lit the spark, but everyone is owning this."

Earth Hour itself is easy to make fun of — skeptics will say that turning out the lights won't make but a light ding in our carbon emissions, and critics will claim it proves that environmentalists really do want to send us straight to the dark ages. The Competitive Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, is holding a counter-protest during the same time period called Celebrate Human Achievement Hour, which will "salute the people who keep the lights on and produce the energy that helps make human achievement possible." (So if you've ever wanted to throw a party for your local coal plant, this will be your chance.) But Earth Hour is a symbolic act, and as WWF's Roberts points out, "history is littered with symbolic acts that became tipping points."(Read "Solar Power: Eco-Friendly or Environmental Blight?")

Is Earth Hour going to become such a tipping point, or the movement's defining image? It's possible, but as important as pictures are, we'll need more. When President George W. Bush was in charge, knocking away climate change action like an NHL goalie, symbolism mattered because it was all we had. Now there's a new President who has made very green promises, and who needs to be kept to them, even in the teeth of the worst economic crisis most of us have ever known. The new battle will be fought in the nitty gritty of policy, and the protests that matter will be political ones.

Global warming may never get its perfect picture — Earth Hour, a globe gone dark, may be the closest thing we'll have. That's all right — at a time when a recent Gallup poll reports that a record-high 41% of Americans think global warming is exaggerated, green groups need to do everything they can to keep this issue on the front burner, here and in the rest of the world. "The take home message from Earth Hour should be that we are not alone," says Roberts. "I want people to go to the website, but after, I want them to send a letter to their congressman." So think of it this way; turning off your lights Saturday night is all well and good — but remember that the work really starts when you turn them back on.

(Via Time.com)

In world's first global election, vote for Earth

This year, Earth Hour has been transformed into the world’s first global election, between Earth and global warming. For the first time in history, people of all ages, nationalities, race and background have the opportunity to use their light switch as their vote – Switching off your lights is a vote for Earth, or leaving them on is a vote for global warming. WWF are urging the world to VOTE EARTH and reach the target of 1 billion votes, which will be presented to world leaders at the Global Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen 2009. This meeting will determine official government policies to take action against global warming, which will replace the Kyoto Protocol. It is the chance for the people of the world to make their voice heard.

Earth Hour began in Sydney in 2007, when 2.2 million homes and businesses switched off their lights for one hour. In 2008 the message had grown into a global sustainability movement, with 50 million people switching off their lights. Global landmarks such as the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Rome’s Colosseum, the Sydney Opera House and the Coca Cola billboard in Times Square all stood in darkness.

In 2009, Earth Hour is being taken to the next level, with the goal of 1 billion people switching off their lights as part of a global vote. Unlike any election in history, it is not about what country you’re from, but instead, what planet you’re from. VOTE EARTH is a global call to action for every individual, every business, and every community. A call to stand up and take control over the future of our planet. Over 74 countries and territories have pledged their support to VOTE EARTH during Earth Hour 2009, and this number is growing everyday.

We all have a vote, and every single vote counts. Together we can take control of the future of our planet, for future generations.

On March 28 you can VOTE EARTH by switching off your lights for one hour.
Or you can vote global warming by leaving your lights on.

Willie Smits: How we re-grew a rainforest

By piecing together a complex ecological puzzle, biologist Willie Smits has found a way to re-grow clearcut rainforest in Borneo, saving local orangutans -- and creating a thrilling blueprint for restoring fragile ecosystems.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts.

Global Warming : Polar Bears

Global Warming. It may seem like an impossible problem: The Arctic ice is melting, storms are becoming fiercer, the resulting climate change is upsetting invaluable ecosystems, and the pollution is damaging our health.

But there is still time. Reversing the trend of global warming trend is possible and depends not only on the efforts of environmental scientists and researchers, governments of all nations, and leaders of business and industry, but just as importantly, it depends on the daily habits of regular people.

It is these regular people that this campaign hopes to inspire. The PSAs take a powerful, emotional approach to reach Americans with the message that global warming is an urgent problem that requires their immediate action.

The PSAs drive audiences to the website www.fightglobalwarming.com. The site provides information on the the causes, science, and consequences of global warming. A large part of the site focuses on what every person can do to reduce their energy consumption and therefore do their part to help slow and reverse global warming.

India to observe 'Earth Hour' on March 28

India will join rest of the world by observing 'Earth Hour' to save energy as well as environment on March 28.

The people will be observing the Day by switching off all the lights and electrical appliances for an hour from 8.30 pm to 9.30 pm.

Began with one hour switching off lights at Sydney in Australia two years back, the 'Earth Hour' was observed in 35 countries last year in an attempt to reduce the carbon footprint, the World Wide Fund for Nature (India) Education officer Dr Goldin Quadros said.

This year India, especially Delhi and Mumbai will participate, he said adding that WWF was getting support from the government as well as the corporate houses.

Lights would be switched off or dimmed at 11 PVR cinemas in Delhi and Mumbai and corporate offices.

As per WWF this year, 50 lakh citizens of 377 cities from 74 nations are participating in this initiative.

Kick-starting the 'Earth Hour'campaign at the at green technology festival of the Chemical Engineering department at IIT `Azeotropy' , Mumbai Mayor Dr Shubha Raul said it was important to cut down carbon level and the municipality will be keen to help in the endeavour.

She has called for a meeting of all the corporators to brief them about the `Earth hour'on Monday and WWF will have a video show for them.

(via Economic Times)

India's light bulb phase out: setting a smart example

How many light bulbs can 1 billion people change? About 400 million wasteful incandescent bulbs, in India’s case.

Today, India has put in place a market mechanism that will phase out incandescent bulbs, making way for a cleaner energy future. The Bachat Lamp Yojana programme will replace 400 million incandescent bulbs with CFLs by 2012, which would save about 55 million tonnes of CO2 each year.

It's truly amazing how big the savings can be from strong action on energy efficiency. With this decision, India will be cutting the same amount of emissions that would come from four coal-fired power plants. If the whole world followed India's lead, eliminating wasted electricity from lighting, the cumulative effect would be equivalent to shutting down around 220 coal-fired power plants.

In this case, India has used a mechanism set up under the Kyoto protocol to bring down the cost of compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs) for ordinary people. The more efficient bulbs were previously 80 - 100 rupees and will now be only 15 rupees, the same price as an incandescent bulb.

The funding comes via the cleaner development mechanism (CDM), effectively a way for developed nations to fund emissions reductions in developing nations. This programme sets an example of how nations can work together now to cut emissions, but a much bigger deal is needed urgently to stop runaway climate change.

Industrialised countries must agree to fund around USD 140 billion a year to help economies in the developing world cut emissions, protect tropical forests and adapt to the effects of climate change. Of course, countries too must implement tough domestic targets to ensure that global greenhouse gas emissions reach a peak by 2015, and start declining rapidly thereafter, reaching zero by 2050.

In India, lighting makes up 20 per cent of all residential electricity consumption, so this is a good first step. We at Snowcem Paints congratulate the Indian government, and hope it is going to carry out more actions in its plan, along with targets and timelines.

Energy efficiency is a really smart way to reduce demand and reduce CO2 emissions quickly, but it is only one half of the solution to climate change. The other is to quit coal and to replace it with non-polluting renewable energy sources like wind and solar - a real energy revolution.

India's rapid pace of development means its CO2 emissions are going up. It also faces peak power shortages even now, so a clean energy revolution will deliver big solutions to these big challenges.

(via Greenpeace.)

Mediterranean sea level could rise by over two feet, global models predict

A Spanish-British research project has come up with three future scenarios for the effects of climate change on the Mediterranean over the next 90 years, using global models from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The conclusions show that ocean temperatures in this area will increase, along with sea levels.

In order to understand and correctly predict risks for the Mediterranean coast, researchers from the Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies (IMEDEA, a joint centre run by the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB) and the Spanish National Research Council, CSIC) and the National Oceanography Centre of Southampton in the United Kingdom have analysed simulations based on three scenarios related to climate change and the rise in greenhouse gases. Their goal was to predict the temperature, sea level and salinity of the Mediterranean in the 21st Century.

"The most positive scenario assumes that greenhouse gas concentrations remain constant at their levels in the year 2000, and even in this case climate change still has an impact. The most negative scenario is based on diverse levels of economic development all over the world, with an ongoing increase in greenhouse gas production throughout the 21st Century," Marta Marcos, the study's lead author and a researcher at the UIB, tells SINC.

The study, which has been published recently in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans, shows what could happen in the Mediterranean. The models predict that higher concentrations of gases will lead to an increase in temperatures throughout the entire sea.

In the most positive scenario, the changes are least, with temperature increases of less than 1ºC expected to be recorded in the Mediterranean by the end of the 21st Century. The other two scenarios envision an increase in greenhouse gases over coming decades, and foresee an increase in the temperature of the sea of up to 2.5º C. In addition, the results show that the temperature increase will accelerate during the 21st Century.

In the long term, sea levels could alter due to changes in temperature (warming leads to an increase in volume) as well as additional mass. "The level of the whole Mediterranean will rise by between 3cm and 61cm* on average as a result of the effects of warming," says Marcos.

There is "greater uncertainty" in terms of the mass likely to be added as a result of melting ice at the poles and from continental glaciers, and this aspect is not incorporated in the study. The most important area in terms of understanding sea level rise is the coasts, "but it is here that we know least because of the low spatial resolution of the models" the expert adds.

Read more.

Could just one degree change the world?

Witness how drastically our world could change if the earth warms by just one degree.

New wind turbine design good for rural, urban environment

Wind power is one of the fastest growing forms of alternative energy in the world. More and more, wind power mills are seen in the countryside, in large wind farms and for the most part, away from city life. But a new form of wind power is now designed to work in an urban environment. VOA producer Zulima Palacio has the story. Mill Arcega narrates.

Sylvia Earle: How to protect the oceans

Legendary ocean researcher Sylvia Earle shares astonishing images of the ocean -- and shocking stats about its rapid decline -- as she makes her wish: that we will join her in protecting the vital blue heart of the planet.

Why you should listen to her:

Sylvia Earle, called "Her Deepness" by the New Yorker and the New York Times, "Living Legend" by the Library of Congress and "Hero for the Planet" by Time, is an oceanographer, explorer, author and lecturer with a deep commitment to research through personal exploration.

Earle’s work has been at the frontier of deep ocean exploration for four decades. Earle has led more than 50 expeditions worldwide involving more than 6,000 hours underwater. As captain of the first all-female team to live underwater, she and her fellow scientists received a ticker-tape parade and White House reception upon their return to the surface. In 1979, Sylvia Earle walked untethered on the sea floor at a lower depth than any other woman before or since. In the 1980s she started the companies Deep Ocean Engineering and Deep Ocean Technologies with engineer Graham Hawkes to design and build undersea vehicles that allow scientists to work at previously inaccessible depths. In the early 1990s, Dr. Earle served as Chief Scientist of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. At present she is explorer-in-residence at the National Geographic Society.

Sylvia Earle is a dedicated advocate for the world’s oceans and the creatures that live in them. Her voice speaks with wonder and amazement at the glory of the oceans and with urgency to awaken the public from its ignorance about the role the oceans plays in all of our lives and the importance of maintaining their health.

"We've got to somehow stabilize our connection to nature so that in 50 years from now, 500 years, 5,000 years from now there will still be a wild system and respect for what it takes to sustain us."

Sylvia Earle

Toss that toxic couch

Whether you're a design junkie who obsesses over every piece of furniture in the house or a low-maintenance IKEA type, there's no question that the surfaces on which you sleep, eat and lounge are a big part of your everyday life. And like most choices we make, the furniture that fills our home not only affects our comfort levels, but also has an impact on the environment and our health.

There are many good reasons to seek out green furniture: Keeping excessive manufacturing waste out of landfills; saving endangered forests; and improving indoor air quality by reducing the use of toxic chemicals are a few of the big ones. And as innovative designers become increasingly tuned in to the desires of the consumer who is as style savvy as she is environmentally conscious, options abound for outfitting your pad with supremely cool gear that doesn't forget the planet.

Sound too good to be true? Economically, it may be. Though rapidly growing, green design is still a relatively small segment of the furniture market, which often results in hefty price tags for even simple pieces. The solution? Start slowly.

Just as it's impossible to instantly transform every piece of your wardrobe into organic cotton, it's unrealistic to quickly fill your home with furniture crafted from sustainably harvested wood. While you're saving up for the big-ticket items like the Isabella Bed from RC Green — made from Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)-certified wood and natural latex — you can score furniture that is eco- and wallet-friendly by seeking out previously owned pieces. Reusing is always the greenest option as it doesn't require new materials or the energy required for manufacturing, and it keeps another item out of the landfill. You can go the craigslist.org or freecycle.net route or you can hunt for vintage and antique items.

But if you've got the green to purchase new green pieces, keep these tips in mind as you shop:

• Look for furniture made from reclaimed materials. Houses, kitchen tables, pianos, baseball bats — think of all the wood that is used to make things each day and then think about all the scraps left over from construction and manufacturing and the landfill waste from discarded wood items. Instead of using new wood to make dining room chairs and beds and bookshelves, some green designers are turning to wood that's already in play. NYC-based RG Furniture Design turns lumber from historic buildings under demolition in New York City into striking tables, benches, shelves and lamps.
• Seek out furniture made from FSC-certified wood. We need trees. Lots of them. They produce oxygen, absorb carbon dioxide, and help to keep the planet cool, among several other very commendable attributes. Purchasing furniture made from wood sourced from sustainably harvested forests helps to ensure that many trees will be with us for a long, long time. The Forest Stewardship Council is the biggest certifier. Look for its seal of approval before investing in an eco-friendly piece of furniture. Check out Woodshanti's stunning FSC-certified computer desk.
• Purchase furniture made without toxic chemicals. Your couch may look harmless, but unless you know exactly how it was manufactured, there's a good chance that it's off-gassing (emitting substances into the air) harmful chemicals into your home. The most common off-gassed substances are VOCs, or volatile organic compounds, which actually sound as scary as they are — they've been connected to cancer and birth defects — and can be found in substances like formaldehyde, flame retardants, finishes, adhesives and foam cushions. Check out the Brave Space Hallow Coffee Table with low VOC adhesives and a nontoxic finish.

(via Newsweek)

Indian experts find bacteria to beat global heat

In a major breakthrough that could help in the fight against global warming, a team of five Indian scientists from four institutes of the country have discovered a naturally occurring bacteria which converts carbon dioxide (CO2) into a compound found in limestone and chalk.

When used as an enzyme — biomolecules that speed up a chemical reaction — the bacteria has been found to transform CO2 into calcium carbonate (CaCO3), which can fetch minerals of economic value, said Dr Anjana Sharma from the biosciences department of RD University, Jabalpur, who was part of the Rs 98.6 lakh project sponsored by the department of biotechnology (DBT) under the Union science and technology ministry.

CO2 is a greenhouse gas produced in the burning of fossil fuels and other industrial activities. The rising emissions of CO2 in the atmosphere is chiefly responsible for global warming. Reducing CO2 levels is the single most important strategy to fight global warming and the resulting effects of climate change.

"The enzyme can be put to work in any situation, like in a chamber fitted inside a factory chimney through which CO2 would pass before being emitted into the atmosphere, and it would convert the greenhouse gas into calcium carbonate,’’ Dr Sadhana Rayalu, the project coordinator who is from the National Environmental Engineering and Research Institute (NEERI), Nagpur, told TOI on phone from Nagpur.

This potentially means that the bacteria — extracted from a number of places including brick kilns in Satna, Madhya Pradesh — can be used to take out CO2 from its sources of emission itself.

Rayalu said the chemical reactions involved in the process have been successfully established while its economic viability, cloning, expression and single-step purification are under study. The team has published its findings in the Indian Journal of Microbiology and its paper has been accepted for publication in the World Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology.

Sharma said the breakthrough was the result of marathon research work spanning more than three years. Other members of the team are Dr K Krishnamurty from NEERI, Dr T Satyanarayana from Delhi University and Dr A K Tripathi from Banaras Hindu University.

"Interestingly, it is nature that has come to the rescue of the human race from harmful effects of global warming. Investigators of the team have discovered as many as seven such micro-organisms that have the tendency to convert carbon dioxide into calcium carbonate at different natural locations,’’ said Sharma, who was on a visit to Allahabad.

(via Times of India)

The truth about climate change

The legendary broadcaster and naturalist Sir David Attenborough was long unsure about the causes of the observed climate warming. In his documentary, The Truth About Climate Change, he sheds doubt and explains what convinced him.

Climate models based on purely natural processes such as solar activity and volcanic eruptions fail to explain the observed change in Earth's climate in the latter part of the 20th century. Models factoring in the human impact, that is, the increase of carbon dioxide in the athmosphere, depict the transpired warming accurately, however.

4 degrees warmer, great cities wash away

Great cities could wash away if the Earth gets hotter by 4 degrees and the Ganges in India could dry up. India would be one of the most impacted countries by global warming.

A surprising idea for "solving" climate change

Environmental scientist David Keith proposes a cheap, effective, shocking means to address climate change: What if we injected a huge cloud of ash into the atmosphere to deflect sunlight and heat?

Google is not the enivronment problem

A recent report by a Harvard physicist estimates that a Google search generates about seven grams of carbon dioxide based on the electricity required to keep the company's servers running.

The headlines about the study quickly proliferated around the globe, with Britain's Inquirer chiding, "Googling pollutes the planet." Well, sure, but so does just about every other human activity. And it is in that context that Googling and internet usage must be judged.

In short, Googling is not the issue, dude.

Today, Google said that each of its searches uses 1 kilojoule or 0.24 kilocalories of energy. We can convert that into a unit we're all more familiar with: gas for your car.

A gallon of gas contains about 31,000 kilocalories — about 115 Snickers bars' worth — of energy, so a single gallon of gasoline would power about 130,000 searches. Even if Google handled five billion searches per day, the company's energy consumption for searches would be equivalent to something like the burning of 39,000 gallons of gasoline. The United States alone consumes 390,000,000 gallons every single day!

And even U.S. gas consumption is just a small fraction of the world's total energy usage — something like 1.4 exajoules of power per day. That's 1.4 times 10¹⁵ kilojoules. So, even if Google consumed 5 billion kilojoules for searches every day, that would only require 0.00037 percent of the world's daily energy usage.

As for the carbon footprint, Google says each search is only responsible for 0.2 grams of CO2, not the 7 grams that the Harvard researcher claims, but the dispute misses the larger point. U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are estimated at 16.9 billion kilograms of CO2-equivalent per day. Again assuming 5 billion daily searches, Google would be responsible for either 0.2 or 0.006 percent of the nation's carbon footprint, depending on whose number you choose.

When it comes the world's energy system, Google is not the problem. They are, however, embedded in the energy-intensive infrastructure that we've been building ever since we figured out how to tap the earth's fossil fuel resources.

It is a fine thing if internet companies want to worry about their carbon footprints. It's great, in fact. But chiding Google for making such a relatively tiny contribution to the overall environmental problem in the world is like complaining about a wobbly leg on one of the deck chairs on the Titanic.

(Via Wired)

The world's first energy-generating revolving door

Harvesting the kinetic energy generated by crowds of people is one of our favorite approaches to renewable energy. Recently Netherlands-based Natuurcafé La Port installed an energy generator in a rotating door, so every time someone walks in for a cup of coffee, they give just a little bit of their energy back to the coffee shop. We keep saying that solving the problem of global warming will require that we open up new doors in the field of renewable energy, but we must admit that we never expected to mean it literally.

The door was part of the refurbishment of the Driebergen-Zeist railway station designed out by architecture firm RAU and built by Boon Edam. The door is expected to generate around 4600 kwh of energy each year, which may not sound like much - but every little bit helps. To enhance the design, the team decided to include a transparent ceiling to show how the system works, and LEDs display the amount of energy that it is generated each time someone walks in the door.

(via Inhabitat)

Anti-smog architecture in Paris

Architect Vincent Callebaut’s latest project balances public galleries, meeting rooms and gathering spaces over canals and abandoned railroad tracks in the 19th Parisian district. The prototype uses green technologies and techniques but is more than just an example of sustainable design. Callebaut’s ‘Anti Smog: An Innovation Centre in Sustainable Development’ is a catalyst for cleaner air.

The project centers on the “Solar Drop”, an elliptical structure perched over the unused railroad tracks. The exterior is fitted with 250 square meters of solar photovoltaic panels and coated in titanium dioxide (TiO2). The PV system produces on-site electrical energy while the TiO2 coating works with ultraviolet radiation to interact with particulates in the air, break down organics and reduce air born pollutants and contaminants.

Callebaut describes the process as an intention to “absorb and recycle by photo-catalytic effect the cloud of harmful gases (Smog) from the intense traffic near Paris.” Under the smog eating exterior, the building houses public spaces with a central courtyard and natural lagoon, a place Callebaut envisions for teaching opportunities about urban ecology and renewable energy. The Solar Drop also harvests rainwater from green space on the roof for use inside the building.

The “Wind Tower”, the second component to Anti Smog, spirals into the air with a helical shape and a façade that alternates between vegetation and embedded Vertical Axis Wind Turbines (VAWT) to capture the prevailing urban winds. Ramps lead visitors through museum space and out to a rooftop garden with views across Paris.

Anti Smog offers an innovative urban space that is engaging, powered by renewable energy and has a positive impact on the surrounding urban environment. In the words of the designer it is ‘”a self-sufficient dépolluante“. Oui indeed.

via Inhabitat

Al Gore debates global warming

Al Gore debates expert climatologists on whether carbon dioxide causes global warming.

Tick

Fight global warming. Time is running out.