Literary Warrant [7]

• Frank Barnaby & James Kemp, eds., Oxford Research Group, Secure Energy? Civil Nuclear Power, Security and Global Warming (March 2007)
  
  "All over the world the fortunes of civil nuclear power are rising—why? Many in government hope that nuclear power would increase energy security during a time of unstable competition and surging demand. Some claim nuclear power is key to reducing global CO2 emissions. For others, it is because nuclear power opens the door to nuclear weapons.
  
  "This report asks two questions: how dangerous is nuclear power? And can it help reduce CO2 emissions? The short answer to the first questions is ‘very’: nuclear power is uniquely dangerous when compared to other energy sources. For the second question the answer is ‘not enough and not in time’."
  


• Karlyn Bowman, Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Polls on the Environment and Global Warming (AEI Studies in Public Opinion) (April 20, 2007)
  
  "This study is a compilation of public opinion data on the quality of the environment, which political party is better on the issue, the handling of the environment by the Clinton and Bush administrations, Bush versus Kerry on the issue, the political importance of the environment, environmental activism, and the impact of gas prices. The study includes all of the latest polling data as well as important historical trends for comparative purposes."
  


• Ceres, U.S. Mutual Funds Critical Missing Link in Supporting Climate Change Shareholder Resolutions (April 23, 2007)
  
  "None of the nation's 100 largest mutual funds voted in 2006 to support shareholder resolutions calling for more corporate disclosure on the financial impacts from global climate change, according to proxy voting data compiled by Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) for Ceres and posted today on http://www.ceres.org."—Press release.
  


• Debra K. Decker & Erwann O. Michel-Kerjan, Risk Management and Decision Processes Center, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, A New Energy Paradigm Ensuring Nuclear Fuel Supply and Nonproliferation through International Collaboration with Insurance and Financial Markets (Wharton Risk Center Working Paper #07-06) (March 2007)
  
  "Building on the experience of the nuclear safety/security and catastrophic risk financing fields, we discuss ways the international community could facilitate the development of an insurance market to provide added security. Specifically, we recommend the financial indemnification for economic losses suffered by nuclear utilities (public and private) due to a disruption of supply over the full fuel cycle (enrichment, fabrication, and transportation). One way to achieve that is to establish an international insurance mechanism (e.g., a mutual company) that would both limit the fuel risk of the nuclear facilities and benefit from coverage from a consortium of private insurers and reinsurers. The mechanism could benefit from an additional layer of protection by being backstopped by IAEA member countries.
  
  "The eligibility for such insurance coverage and the terms and condition of the indemnification would be analyzed and prespecified. Because this approach would rely on international insurance markets, it could be seen not only as complementary to other proposed solutions but also more neutral.
  
  "The mutual company could also use supply options to facilitate fuel deliveries in the event of market interruptions. Support for the commoditization of the uranium market should also be considered."—Abstract.
  


• Mary L. Dudziak, Bancroft Prizes for 2007 announced by Columbia University (Legal History Blog) (April 23, 2007)
  
  There's less of a legal angle to this entry than even the least legal offerings of some Literary Warrant posts, but this one emphatically features the literary aspect. Among the winners identified by Prof. Dudziak is Jack Temple Kirby, whose Mockingbird Song: Ecological Landscapes of the South (University of North Carolina), according to the Bancroft jurors, 'is an ecological history of the American South, told through a series of chapters about different types of landscapes and the way human beings have lived and worked in them.... Kirby reflects profoundly on the relationships of Americans—and of humankind—to the natural world...an original in the growing field of environmental history, elegantly conceived and beautifully written."
  


• Patty Glick, Senior Global Warming Specialist, National Wildlife Federation, The Gardener's Guide to Global Warming: Challenges and Solutions (April 2007)
  
  "Trade-in the SUV, use florescent light bulbs, turn down your thermostat. These are just some of the things we’re being told we can do to reduce our impact on global warming. But according to a new report from the National Wildlife Federation, A Gardeners Guide to Global Warmin, there are also many things you can do in the garden that will help combat this serious and potentially devastating environmental problem caused by our voracious appetite for fossil fuels. And the spring gardening season is the perfect time to get started."—Press release (April 18, 2007)
  


• National Commission on Energy Policy, Energy Commission Proposes Plan to Cut Total U.S. Climate Emissions in First Year of Program (April 19, 2007)
  
  "The National Commission on Energy Policy, a bipartisan group of top energy experts from industry, government, labor, academia, and environmental and consumer groups, today released a series of new, sweeping recommendations to address the nation's leading energy challenges. In its new report, Energy Policy Recommendations to the President and the 110th Congress, the Commission proposed revised policies regarding a cap and trade proposal for addressing global climate change, increases in fuel economy standards, approaches for the storage of nuclear waste, development and deployment of advanced coal technologies, adoption of a national renewable energy standard, and other major energy policy issues."—Press release.
  


• Property Casualty Insurance Association of America et al., Sharp Decline in Catastrophe Losses Drive Improvement in P/C Insurers’ Full-Year 2006 Results (Press release) (April 18, 2007)
  
  "Driven by a sharp decline in catastrophe losses from hurricanes and other natural disasters in 2006, the U.S. property/casualty industry posted a $31.2 billion net gain on underwriting for the year. The net gain on underwriting in 2006 stands in stark contrast to the $5.6 billion net loss on underwriting in 2005."
  


• Nicholas Schneider, Policy Analyst, Fraser Institute, Centre for Risk, Regulation, and Environment, Welcome Back, Kyoto (Fraser Forum) (April 2007)
  
  "Reducing Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions to meet Kyoto Protocol targets by 2012 could cost each Canadian upwards of $3,500 a year for the next several years, according to research done by The Fraser Institute, an independent research organization with offices across Canada.
  
  "The alternative is to purchase foreign emission credits, a move that would transfer $30 billion from Canada to other countries."—Press release (April 20, 2007)
  


• Brian T. Turner, Richard J. Plevin, Michael O'Hare & Alexander E. Farrell, Creating Markets for Green Biofuels: Measuring and Improving Environmental Performance (University of California, Berkeley, Transportation Sustainability Research Center Research Report, UCB-ITS-TSRC-RR-2007-1) (April 2007)
  
  "While 'green' and 'environmentally friendly' may seem synonymous with 'biofuels,' this is not necessarily true in practice; all biofuels entail tradeoffs among positive and negative environmental effects. Because the environmental performance of biofuels is not measured today, consumers have no information about how to buy greener biofuels and producers have no incentive to manufacture and market them. The right set of market signals and regulatory requirements can change this situation, so that American consumers could buy biofuels certified as environmentally friendly, and so that the American agriculture and energy industries would have incentives to improve. Markets for green biofuels would stimulate a new wave of innovation, creating high-value and truly green biofuels, and enhancing energy security by diversifying our energy sources. However, without appropriate information, incentives, and rules, the biofuels industry is likely to expand production in environmentally harmful ways."—Executive Summary.
  


• UN Pulse, UN Security Council Discusses Impact of Climate Change on Security (April 17, 2007)
  
  Reports on a debate "exploring the relationship between energy, security and climate, the first time this issue has been taken up at an international forum. A concept paper prepared by the United Kingdom (S/2007/186) noted that the focus of the debate will be on the security implications of a changing climate, including through its impact on potential drivers of conflict such as access to energy, water, food and other scarce resources, population movements and border disputes."
  


• United States Department of the Interior, Office of Inspector General, Private Use of Public Lands: National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management (Audit Report, Report No. W-IN-MOA-0008-2005) (April 2007)
  
  "We found that NPS has allowed private individuals or exclusive clubs to monopolize desirable locations near major metropolitan areas for decades to the exclusion of the general public, although we could not identify the extent of this permitting. Some of the clubs charge high membership fees or limit the number of people who can become members. NPS continues to renew the permits for these exclusive clubs and has kept the $2.6 million in permit fees received over the 4-year period of our review instead of remitting the funds to the U.S. Treasury. Moreover, both NPS and BLM have allowed permits to be renewed without ensuring their compliance with the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). We made four recommendations related to NPS to identify the extent of exclusive use, ensure full public access, and remit permit fees to the U.S. Treasury, and one recommendation to both NPS and BLM to comply with NEPA."—Memorandum (April 10, 2007)
  


• United States Geological Survey (USGS), Ground-Water Climate Response Network (USGS Fact Sheet 2007-3003) (April 2007)
  
  "The primary purpose of the Climate Response Network is to portray the effect of climate on ground-water levels in unconfined aquifers or near-surface confined aquifers that are minimally affected by pumping or other anthropogenic stresses. The Climate Response Network Web site (http://groundwaterwatch.usgs.gov/) is the official USGS Web site for illustrating current ground-water conditions in the United States and Puerto Rico."
  


• United States Government Accountability Office (GAO), Climate Change: Financial Risks to Federal and Private Insurers in Coming Decades are Potentially Significant (Report to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, U.S. Senate, GAO-07-285) (March 2007)
  
  "Major private and federal insurers are both exposed to the effects of climate change over coming decades, but are responding differently. Many large private insurers are incorporating climate change into their annual risk management practices, and some are addressing it strategically by assessing its potential long-term industry-wide impacts. The two major federal insurance programs, however, have done little to develop comparable information. GAO acknowledges that the federal insurance programs are not profit-oriented, like private insurers. Nonetheless, a strategic analysis of the potential implications of climate change for the major federal insurance programs would help the Congress manage an emerging high-risk area with significant implications for the nation’s growing fiscal imbalance."—What GAO Found. See also the related statement by John B. Stephenson, Director, Natural Resources and Environment, GAO, Testimony Before the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, U.S. Senate (GAO-07-760T) (April 19, 2007).
  


• Fred Wellington et al., World Resources Institute (WRI), Scaling Up: Global Technology Deployment to Stabilize Emissions (2007)
  
  "Climate change is a defining challenge for economic development in the 21st century, and understanding this issue will make the difference between success and failure for investors in the world’s vast energy markets, according to a report released today by the World Resources Institute (WRI)...."—Press release (April 17, 2007)
  


• World Economic Forum, Latin America@Risk: A Global Risk Network Briefing (2007)
  
  "The World Economic Forum today released its Latin America@Risk report. Produced by the Forum's Global Risk Network, the report emphasizes the uncertainty surrounding external economic shocks, global climate change, political instability and social inequality, and its effect on regional growth and welfare.
  
  "The report notes the increasing strength and robustness of Latin America's economies, while exploring the key economic, environmental, geopolitical and societal issues that put that progress at risk. While all four of these issues emerge from the broader global risk environment, the regional manifestations present particular challenges for governments, industry and civil society throughout Latin America."—Press release (April 18, 2007)

National Security in a Changing Climate

A new report on this topic has gotten a great deal of publicity. The Report concludes:

Climate change acts as a threat multiplier for instability in some of the most volatile regions of the world. Projected climate change will seriously exacerbate already marginal living standards in many Asian, African, and Middle Eastern nations, causing widespread political instability and the likelihood of failed states.Unlike most conventional security threats that involve a single entity acting in specific ways and points in time, climate change has the potential to result in multiple chronic conditions, occurring globally within the same time frame. Economic and environmental onditions in already fragile areas will further erode as food production declines, diseases increase, clean water becomes increasingly scarce, and large populations move in search of resources.Weakened and failing governments, with an already thin margin for survival, foster the conditions for internal conflicts, extremism, and movement toward increased authoritarianism and radical ideologies.

The U.S. may be drawn more frequently into these situations, either alone or with allies, to help provide stability before conditions worsen and are exploited by extremists. The U.S. may also be called upon to undertake stability and reconstruction efforts once a conflict has begun, to avert further disaster and reconstitute a stable environment.

Literary Warrant [6]

• Luís M. A. Bettencourt et al., Growth, Innovation, Scaling, and the Pace of Life in Cities, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (April 16, 2007)
  
  "Humanity has just crossed a major landmark in its history with the majority of people now living in cities. Cities have long been known to be society’s predominant engine of innovation and wealth creation, yet they are also its main source of crime, pollution, and disease. The inexorable trend toward urbanization worldwide presents an urgent challenge for developing a predictive, quantitative theory of urban organization and sustainable development. Here we present empirical evidence indicating that the processes relating urbanization to economic development and knowledge creation are very general, being shared by all cities belonging to the same urban system and sustained across different nations and times. Many diverse properties of cities from patent production and personal income to electrical cable length are shown to be power law functions of population size with scaling exponents, {beta}, that fall into distinct universality classes...."—Abstract.


• Catherine Brahic, High-Risk Air Routes for Invasive Species Revealed, New Scientist Environment (April 11, 2007)
  
  "A new study of how the global airline network connects far-flung regions with similar climates may help pinpoint flights most at risk of unwittingly importing invasive species."


• Robert D. Bullard et al., Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty: 1987—2007 (A Report Prepared for the United Church of Christ Justice & Witness Ministries)
  
  "Twenty years after the release of the Toxic Wastes and Race report, racial and socioeconomic disparities persist in the distribution of the nation's commercial hazardous waste facilities. The conclusions of the 1987 Report are similar to those of our updated report. In fact, in Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty report you will read that 'people of color are found to be more concentrated around hazardous waste facilities than previously shown.' You will see that race matters. Place matters too. Unequal protection places communities of color at special risk. And polluting industries still follow the path of least resistance, among other findings."—Preface.


• Augustin Colette, Climate Change Consultant, UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Case Studies on Climate Change and World Heritage (1997)
  
  "The UNESCO World Heritage Centre (WHC) initiated an assessment of the impacts of climate change on World Heritage in 2005, after the World Heritage Committee noted that 'the impacts of climate change are affecting many and are likely to affect many more World Heritage properties, both natural and cultural in the years to come'.... The outcome of this work has shown that it is timely to develop and implement appropriate management responses to protect World Heritage in the face of climate change. The solutions to global warming are the subject of continuing debate. Some of these measures, beyond the scope of the World Heritage Convention, are discussed under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). But although climate change is a global challenge, there are many adaptation and preventive measures that can be taken at the local scale, i.e. at the level of the World Heritage sites."—Introduction.


• Francisco Donez, Institute for the Study of Social Change, University of California, Berkeley, Black Rocks, Brown Clouds and the Borderlands: Air Quality and the Making of the Big Bend (2007)
  
  "This paper concerns the making of a place, specifically the Big Bend region of the Texas-Mexico border. As an entry point, it examines the unexpected phenomenon of air pollution in this rural region and the ways in which this environmental impetus has spurred actions, at various scales, to preserve the Big Bend's 'character' and economy. The mobilizations over Big Bend air quality at several scales can be seen as moves to preserve the construction of this region as a pristine, rural pocket of the American West, rather than as part of the urbanized, tainted U.S.-Mexico borderlands. However, geographic and economic realities act to pull the Big Bend more deeply into the borderlands. In this way, issues of air pollution become part of the struggle to construct this region as unique, clean and precious in the face of some uncomfortable geographic realities."—Abstract.


• Environmental Law Institute, Lasting Landscapes: Reflections on the Role of Conservation Science in Land Use Planning (2007)
  
  "Land use and development decisions made at the local, county, and state levels have a significant and cumulative effect on the conservation of native species diversity. Through their planning and local regulatory powers, land use planners and local elected officials have the ability to influence the types, extent, and arrangement of land uses across the landscape. These patterns can have a profound influence on the viability of biodiversity far beyond municipal boundaries. However, while many planners express interest in using their tools to conserve habitat, they frequently do not have access to the scientific information necessary to integrate ecological principles into their decision-making. And, currently the barriers to incorporating conservation science into planning remain formidable. This report brings together nine of the leading thinkers in the land use planning, conservation biology, and conservation policy professions to explore how the field of conservation planning could be further advanced. Each was asked to reflect upon the role of his/her respective profession in promoting the use of science-based information in land use planning."


• Nils Gilman, Peter Schwartz & Doug Randall, Impacts of Climate Change: A System Vulnerability Approach to Consider the Potential Impacts to 2050 of a Mid-Upper Greenhouse Gas Emissions Scenario (March 2007)
  
  "Over the past two decades, and especially in the last few years, climate change has become one of the most heavily researched subjects in science. Yet climate change impact studies remain at the low end of usefulness for policymakers and others; they are not predictive enough to be actionable because the exact nature of the events that will jar the planet in the near- and long-term future—the wheres, whens, and hows of climate change—remains both unknown and unknowable. This paper offers policymakers an alternative approach to thinking about climate change and its impacts. Instead of starting with climate change and working out toward impacts, we focus on systems that are already generally vulnerable first, and then consider what the geophysics of climate change may do to them. This approach has two benefits. First, it limits the number of logical steps necessary for thinking about the impacts of climate change, enabling more confident insights and conclusions. Second, it cuts across analytic stovepipes and gives regional specialists a framework for thinking about what climate change will mean for their particular areas, based on expertise they already have."—Abstract.


• Lawrence O. Gostin & Benjamin E. Berkman, Pandemic Influenza: Ethics, Law, and the Public's Health (Georgetown Law Faculty Working Papers) 59 Admin. L. Rev. 121 (2007)
  
  "Highly pathogenic Influenza (HPAI) has captured the close attention of policy makers who regard pandemic influenza as a national security threat. Although the prevalence is currently very low, recent evidence that the 1918 pandemic was caused by an avian influenza virus lends credence to the theory that current outbreaks could have pandemic potential. If the threat becomes a reality, massive loss of life and economic disruption would ensue. Therapeutic countermeasures (e.g., vaccines and antiviral medications) and public health interventions (e.g., infection control, social separation, and quarantine) form the two principal strategies for prevention and response, both of which present formidable legal and ethical challenges that have yet to receive sufficient attention. In part II, we examine the major medical countermeasures being being considered as an intervention for an influenza pandemic. In this section, we will evaluate the known effectiveness of these interventions and analyze the ethical claims relating to distributive justice in the allocation of scarce resources. In part III, we will discuss public health interventions, exploring the hard tradeoffs between population health on the one hand and personal (e.g., autonomy, privacy, and liberty) and economic (e.g., trade, tourism, and business) interests on the other. This section will focus on the ethical and human rights issues inherent in population-based interventions. Pandemics can be deeply socially divisive, and the political response to these issues not only impacts public health preparedness, but also reflects profoundly on the kind of society we aspire to be."—Introduction.


• Molly E. Hellmuth et al., Climate Risk Management in Africa: Learning from Practice (International Research Institute for Climate and Society [IRI], Columbia University, Climate and Society Pubs. Series, no. 1) (2007)
  
  "The inaugural issue...describes current efforts that are helping societies better adapt, and shows that when climate information successfully reaches vulnerable populations, it can be used to improve livelihoods and economies, and even save lives. The report was launched on January 30th during a special session of the 8th African Union Heads-of-State Summit held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It details five examples of how climate risks are being effectively managed in Africa."


• Fen Montaigne, Still Waters: The Global Fish Crisis, National Geographic (April 2007)
  
  "The Mediterranean may lose its wild bluefin tuna. High-tech harvesting and wasteful management have brought world fish stocks to dangerous lows. This story explores the fish crisis—as well as the hope for a new relationship between man and the sea."


• Lyria Bennett Moses, Recurring Dilemmas: The Law’s Race to Keep Up With Technological Change (University of New South Wales Faculty of Law Research Series, Working Paper 21) (April 2007)
  
  "Although not every technology generates litigation and legal scholarship, technological change is often the occasion for legal problems. Metaphors of law's struggle to keep up with technology reflect the law’s failure to cope with technological change. These metaphors have been used in contexts as diverse as railroads, in vitro fertilization, computers, and the Internet. This article seeks to understand why technological change poses such difficulties for the law. It describes four common types of legal problems that arise from technological change: (1) the potential need for laws to ban, restrict or, alternatively, encourage a new technology; (2) uncertainty in the application of existing legal rules to new practices; (3) the possible over-inclusiveness or under-inclusiveness of existing legal rules as applied to new practices; and (4) alleged obsolescence of existing legal rules.
  
  "Using this classification, the Article considers the problem of designing a legal system able to cope in a rapidly changing technological environment. It analyzes the idea of 'technological neutrality' as a technique of statutory drafting designed to ensure that statutes are able to operate fairly and effectively in diverse technological contexts. It demonstrates that, while such techniques might ensure proper treatment of existing technologies, they are ineffective in a changing technological environment. Instead of focusing on drafting techniques, a broader institutional context is required. The goal should not be technology-neutral legislation, but rather a legal system that continues to treat different technologies fairly and effectively as technology evolves."—Abstract.
  
  This paper was first discussed at the Law and Technology Theory blog, which seems to be languishing these days.


• Max Schulz, Energy and the Environment: Myths and Facts
  
  The Manhattan Institute's Center for Energy and the Environment "sought...to determine what Americans believe about energy and environmental issues. We report here on the answers given by 1,000 Americans, chosen to be representative of public opinion generally, on matters such as the sources of U.S. energy supply, the extent of the oil supply, the rate of global warming, and trends in atmospheric pollution. Our poll was taken at a time—the summer of 2006—when, because of a sharp increase in the price of gasoline, public interest in energy and environmental issues was particularly keen.
  
  "The survey found that the views that Americans hold about a wide range of these issues are, in key ways, inaccurate. Significant numbers of people appear to misunderstand such crucial matters as:
  
  
  • The types of fuel that are the main sources of energy
  
  
  • The main uses of energy supplies
  
  
  • Which countries supply the U.S. with the most oil
  
  
  • The extent of oil reserves
  
  
  • The rate of global warming
  
  
  • The terms of the Kyoto Protocol international environmental treaty
  
  
  • The environmental record of nuclear power plants
  
  
  • The extent of urban air pollution
  
  
  • The effects of conservation and increases in energy efficiency"
  —Executive Summary.


• United States Department of Commerce, National Climatic Data Center, Climate of 2007—March in Historical Perspective (April 12, 2007)
  
  "March Temperatures Second Warmest on Record for U.S.—March 2007 was more than five degrees F warmer than average throughout the contiguous U.S., making it the second warmest March on record, according to scientists at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. Precipitation was above average in much of the center of the nation, while the Southeast and much of the West were drier than average."—Major Highlights.


• United States Environmental Protection Agency, Energy Trends in Selected Manufacturing Sectors: Opportunities and Challenges for Environmentally Preferable Energy Outcomes (Final Report) (March 2007)
  
  "The objective of this report is to assist the Sector Strategies Division (SSD) of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in developing strategies to promote environmentally preferable outcomes with respect to energy consumption in 12 industrial manufacturing sectors. For the purposes of this analysis, environmentally preferable energy outcomes are achieved by reductions in energy-related air emissions through increased energy efficiency (which reduces fuel consumption and associated emissions) and/or transitioning to less emissions-intensive energy sources. This analysis focuses primarily on emissions of criteria air pollutants (CAPs), but it also includes some projections of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Other air emissions, such as air toxics, and water and land impacts are not included."—Executive Summary.


• United States Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Greenhouse Gas Inventory Reports (April 16, 2007)
  
  "The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has released the national greenhouse gas inventory, which finds that overall emissions during 2005 increased by less than one percent from the previous year. The report, Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2005, was published after gathering comments from a broad range of stakeholders across the country."—Press release.

Buildings Declared Safe!

My April Fools Day post about buildings causing the rapid decay of the Earth's orbit was, of course, a spoof. I've had enough e-mails about it to know how Orson Welles felt! So, really, buildings are OK.

Yet, by design, the spoof was not entirely (or even a little) off point to my recent series of posts. After all, the focus on climate change these days is not just that climate change is happening, but that humans are contributing to it. If the climate change many postulate will occur in the next 100 years were purely a natural phenomenon, like the decay of the Earth's orbit (yes, it is naturally decaying, but don't worry--it is happening really, really slowly!), we'd be discussing it in vastly different terms. We might be considering how human behavior adjustments could alter the path on which nature otherwise would take us, but we would most likely not be vilifying particular sectors of human society quite the way we are today.

As with my post about buildings and Earth's orbit, however, that's not what many believe is happening. There is evidence that humans are contributing to climate change, and some sectors of society more so than others, so accountability is on the table. Yet not all the postulated climate change is necessarily attributable to human-induced effects. So I tried through my spoof to show how complicated it is to try to sort out natural from human-induced effects and to design responses.

Some of the current rhetoric on climate change provided fodder for the spoof. After all, much like growing carbon sequestration forests to reduce climate change, removing mountains to reduce "rapid orbital decay" tends to confuse cause and response--why remove a mountain (or grow a forest) to offset a human-induced effect that can be controlled at the source? Similarly, the idea of ocean-going vessels carrying huge, heavy payloads to "steer" the Earth's orbit is akin to all the talk about adaptation to climate change. Yet, to ignore the opportunities presented by carbon sequestration and adaptation to climate change is to potentially make the consequences of climate change even more severe. We're in a pickle.

All a long way of saying, don't worry, it's OK to live in and enjoy your building, but don't get too comfy. That said, I am still working out my take on markets and cumulative effects. That's proving, to me at least, as difficult to work through as the idea of steering the Earth between MAXCAT and MINCAT!

And for anyone still concerned about the effects of buildings on Earth's orbit, worry no more. In the upcoming issue of Orbitological , Professor Truman Holtobar shows that buildings are not the problem at all. Rather, the real problem is....

Get it in gear!

The Sacramento Bee -- which, by the way, is quite a good newspaper and deserves more of a national reputation -- carried this story about the Governator:

"In California, we are doing everything we can to tip the balance in favor of the environment," Schwarzenegger said Wednesday afternoon at Georgetown University. "California is big. California is powerful, and what we do in California has an impact. We are sending the world a message."

Schwarzenegger's urged federal policymakers and Detroit automakers to take more aggressive action.

"What I'm saying to Michigan is, 'Michigan, get off your butt and join us,'" Schwarzenegger told the enthusiastic crowd.

It's the theme of the week, both globally and parochially. Substantively, Schwarzenegger privately urged Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson this week to grant California a waiver needed to regulate greenhouse gases from cars and trucks. The governor invited Johnson to visit the state during an upcoming 90-day comment period.

Arnold has a certain Teddy Roosevelt aura about him, when you think about it. It's certainly easy to imagine TR saying roughly the same thing, anyway.

The Rising Tide

From the New York Times:

The Sundarbans are among the world’s largest collection of river delta islands. In geological terms they are young and still under formation, cut by an intricate network of streams and tributaries that straddle the border between India and Bangladesh. Ever since the British settled them 150 years ago in pursuit of timber, the mangroves have been steadily depleted — half of the islands have lost their forest cover — and the population has grown.

Today the rising sea and destruction of forests threaten the Sundarbans’ most storied inhabitant, the royal Bengal tiger, which drinks these salty waters and has an appetite for human flesh. Environmental degradation also threatens the unsung human residents: four million people live here on the Indian side of the border alone.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that global warming, spurred by the buildup of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, could raise the ocean’s surface as much as 23 inches by 2100. [According to the panel’s latest report, released in early April, the ecology and people of this river delta system are among the most vulnerable in the world.]

It hardly seems to matter that Mr. Mandal and his neighbors — farmers and fishermen — are far too poor to produce much in the way of carbon emissions. They feel the assault already.

Hard times come again no more

Hat tip: A YouTube video posted by YouTube user Iddybud.

Literary Warrant [5]

• Stephen Blake et al., Forest Elephant Crisis in the Congo Basin (PLoS Biology) (April 3, 2007)
  
  "Forest elephants, perhaps a distinct species of African elephant, occur in the forests of West and Central Africa. Compared to the more familiar savannah elephant of Eastern and Southern Africa, forest elephant biology and their conservation status are poorly known. To provide robust scientific data on the status and distribution of forest elephants to inform and guide conservation efforts, we conducted surveys on foot of forest elephant abundance and of illegal killing of elephants in important conservation sites throughout Central Africa. We covered a combined distance of over 8,000 km on reconnaissance walks, and we systematically surveyed a total area of some 60,000 km2 under the auspices of the Monitoring of the Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE) programme. Our results indicate that forest elephant numbers and range are severely threatened by hunting for ivory. Elephant abundance increased with increasing distance from the nearest road, and poaching pressure was most concentrated near roads. We found that protected areas have a positive impact on elephant abundance, probably because management interventions reduced poaching rates inside protected areas compared to non-protected forest. Law enforcement to bring the illegal ivory trade under control, and effective management and protection of large and remote national parks will be critical if forest elephants are to be successfully conserved."—Author summary.


• Tini Garske, Paul Clarke & Azra C. Ghani, The Transmissibility of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza in Commercial Poultry in Industrialised Countries (PLoS ONE) (April 4, 2007)
  
  "With the increased occurrence of outbreaks of H5N1 worldwide there is concern that the virus could enter commercial poultry farms with severe economic consequences."—Background.
  
  "Our results show that depending on the particular situation in which an outbreak of avian influenza occurs, current controls might not be enough to eradicate the disease, and therefore a close monitoring of the outbreak is required. The method we used for estimating the reproductive number is straightforward to implement and can be used in real-time. It therefore can be a useful tool to inform policy decisions."—Conclusions/Significance.


• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2007: Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
  (Summary for Policymakers) (April 6, 2007)
  
  "The report of the Working Group II assesses the latest scientific, environmental and socio-economic literature on Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. It provides a comprehensive analysis of how climate change is affecting natural and human systems, what the impacts will be in the future and how far adaptation and mitigation can reduce these impacts. The report also contains chapters on specific systems, sectors and regions."
  
  See this beSpacific post for a link to the Working Group I report on the "physical science basis" of knowledge of climate change.


• Brad Knickerbocker, White House expected to feel the heat from Supreme Court's ruling on global warming (Christian Science Monitor) (April 5, 2007)
  
  A brief survey of the initial media response to Massachusetts v. EPA.


• Nicholas Li, Does climate change constitute a threat to international peace and security? (1948 [blog]) (April 5, 2007)
  
  "The United Nations Security Council has the primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security (Article 24/25 of the UN Charter). It can decide for itself what constitutes a threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression (Article 39). Is climate change such a threat?"
  
  Update: A response on 1948 to Li's post by Maarten den Heijer.


• Sandra George O’Neil, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Superfund: Evaluating the Impact of Executive Order 12898 (Environmental Health Perspectives, doi:10.1289/ehp.9903) (April 5, 2007)
  
  "The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) addresses uncontrolled and abandoned hazardous waste sites throughout the country. Sites that are perceived to be a significant threat to both surrounding populations and the environment can be placed on the U.S. EPA's Superfund list and qualify for federal cleanup funds."—Background.
  
  "The equitability of this program has been questioned; the representation of minority and low-income populations in this cleanup program is lower than would be expected. Thus, minorities and low-income populations may not be benefiting proportionately from this environmental cleanup program. In 1994, President Clinton signed Executive Order 12898 requiring that the U.S. EPA, and other federal agencies, implement environmental justice policies. These policies were to specifically address the disproportionate environmental effects of federal programs and policies on minority and low-income populations."—Objective.
  
  Of related interest: This is now the second entry in these Literary Warrant postings based on studies published in NIEHS’s Environmental Health Perspectives. For House Oversight Committee investigation of efforts by the director of NIEHS to privatize the publication, see this beSpacific post.


• Deborah Paulus-Jagrič, Global Warming: A Comparative Guide to the E.U. and the U.S. and Their Approaches to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol (GlobaLex) (March 2007)
  
  "In this guide I briefly synopsize the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol, and discuss the sources one would use to research them, but I make no claim to originality there. As a comparative guide, it has relatively little to offer, at least so far. To state the major difference between the E.U. and the U.S. in the simplest way, in the E.U. there are climate change laws to apply (the E.U. has ratified the Kyoto Protocol and takes its commitments very seriously), and in the U.S. there are none, at least at the federal level. When and if the U.S. government chooses to act on climate change, this guide will include its actions; thus it will evolve and become a truly comparative guide. Its current value lies in its compilation of recent information on the important work that U.S. states and cities have initiated to address climate change and, hopefully, to compel the federal government into action."


• Barry Rabe, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Governance Studies, Brookings Institution, Can Congress Govern the Climate? (March 30, 2007)
  
  "Climate change poses daunting challenges for any governing body, but these are only compounded in the American case where greenhouse gas emissions are so high and the capacity of federal institutions such as Congress to begin to address this issue is so limited. Congress has struggled mightily in recent decades to reach any semblance of consensus on a host of environmental and energy concerns, including those with relevance to climate change. This paper will attempt to examine some of the stumbling blocks to prior Congressional engagement as well as highlight particular policy and governance challenges for any future Congressional attempt to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In turn, it will conclude by highlighting some starting points whereby the 110th Congress might begin to reverse this trend and begin constructive deliberation, drawing from previous models and unique opportunities presented by the current context."—Abstract.


• Jeffrey Shaman & Jonathan F. Day, Reproductive Phase Locking of Mosquito Populations in Response to Rainfall Frequency (PLoS ONE) (March 28, 2007)
  
  "The frequency of moderate to heavy rainfall events is projected to change in response to global warming. Here we show that these hydrologic changes may have a profound effect on mosquito population dynamics and rates of mosquito-borne disease transmission. We develop a simple model, which treats the mosquito reproductive cycle as a phase oscillator that responds to rainfall frequency forcing. This model reproduces observed mosquito population dynamics and indicates that mosquito-borne disease transmission can be sensitive to rainfall frequency. These findings indicate that changes to the hydrologic cycle, in particular the frequency of moderate to heavy rainfall events, could have a profound effect on the transmission rates of some mosquito-borne diseases."—Abstract.


• Slashdot (blog), Biofuels Coming With a High Environmental Price? (April 2, 2007)
  
  "With the spectre of global warming on the horizon, biofuels have been touted as the solution to motor vehicles' greenhouse gas emissions. But with biodiesel use on the increase, it appears a distinctively environmentally unfriendly footprint is being left behind by some of its prime sources; affected food prices are surging out of reach of the poor and rainforests are being destroyed to create larger plantations."


• United States Department of Homeland Security, DHS Releases Comprehensive Regulations for Securing High Risk Chemical Facilities (Press release) (April 2, 2007)
  
  "The U.S. Department of Homeland Security today released an interim final rule that imposes for the first time comprehensive federal security regulations for high risk chemical facilities. The department sought and reviewed comments from state and local partners, Congress, private industry, and the public to develop consistent guidelines using a risk-based approach. The new rule gives the department authority to seek compliance through the imposition of civil penalties, of up to $25,000 per day, and the ability to shut non-compliant facilities down."


• World Wildlife Fund, Saving the World's Natural Wonders from Climate Change: How WWF Field Work Defends Nature and People from Climate Change Impacts (WWF Briefing Paper) (April 5, 2007)
  
  "From the Amazon to the Himalayas, ten of the world's greatest natural wonders face destruction if the climate continues to warm at the current rate, warns WWF.
  
  "Released ahead of the International Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC’s) Second Working Group Report, a WWF briefing—Saving the world’s natural wonders from climate change—reports on how the devastating impacts of global warming are damaging some of the world's greatest natural wonders.
  
  "They include the: Amazon; Great Barrier Reef and other coral reefs; Chihuahua Desert in Mexico and the US; hawksbill turtles in the Caribbean; Valdivian temperate rainforests in Chile; tigers and people in the Indian Sundarbans; Upper Yangtze River in China; wild salmon in the Bering Sea; melting glaciers in the Himalayas; and East African coastal forests."—Press release.

Literary Warrant [4]

• beSpacific, EPA's Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) Data For 2005 Releases (March 23, 2007)
  
  "The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) is a database containing detailed information on nearly 650 chemicals and chemical categories that over 23,000 industrial and federal facilities manage through disposal or other releases, and waste management for recycling, energy recovery, or treatment. This inventory was established under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986 (EPCRA) and expanded by the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990.
  
  "For Reporting Year 2005, 23,461 facilities reported to EPA's TRI Program. These facilities reported 4.34 billion pounds of on-site and off-site disposal or other releases of the almost 650 toxic chemicals. Over 88 percent of the total was disposed of or otherwise released on-site; almost 12 percent was sent off-site for disposal or other releases."—What is the Toxics Release Inventory and what do the data show for 2005?


• Jonathan I. Levy, Andrew M. Wilson & Leonard M. Zwack, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Quantifying the Efficiency and Equity Implications of Power Plant Air Pollution Control Strategies in the United States (Environmental Health Perspectives, doi:10.1289/ehp.9712) (January 22, 2007)
  
  "Background—In deciding among competing approaches for emissions control, debates often hinge on the potential tradeoffs between efficiency and equity. However, previous health benefits analyses have not formally addressed both dimensions.
  
  "Objectives—In this study, we modeled the public health benefits and the change in the spatial inequality of health risk for a number of hypothetical control scenarios for power plants in the United States, to determine optimal control strategies."—Abstract.


• Tarek Maassarani, Government Accountability Project, Redacting the Science of Climate Change: An Investigative and Synthesis Report (March 2007)
  
  "This report, which presents and synthesizes the findings of a year-long investigation to determine the extent of political interference at federal climate science agencies, demonstrates how policies and practices have increasingly restricted the flow of scientific information emerging from publicly-funded climate change research. This has affected the media's ability to report on the science, public officials' capacity to respond with appropriate policies, and the public's grasp of an environmental issue with profound consequences for our future.
  
  [...]
  
  "The investigation found no incidents of direct interference with climate change research. Instead, unduly restrictive policies and practices were located largely in the communication of 'sensitive' scientific information to the media, the public, and Congress. In this context, 'sensitive scientific information' is meant to signify that science which does not support existing policy positions or objectives in research dealing with the effects of climate change or greenhouse gases on hurricanes, sea levels, Arctic ice loss, marine life, and human society."—Executive Summary and Synthesis.
  
  See the March 27 press release for further summary information.


• Peter Spiro, Opinio Juris, The Oxford Handbook of International Environmental Law and the Rise of Academic Reference Works (March 26, 2007)
  
  "Just out from Oxford University Press: The Oxford Handbook of International Environmental Law, edited by my former University of Georgia colleague Dan Bodansky along with Jutta Brunnee and Ellen Hey. It's an impressive collection of 47 entries, with contributions from the likes of Christopher Stone, Peter Sand, Richard Stewart, Scott Barrett, Benedict Kingsbury, and Steve Ratner. I have a chapter on NGOs; my Temple Law colleague Jeff Dunoff has one on levels of environmental governance. I know this took a lot of energy on the part of the editors, and it has paid off with a rich, interdisciplinary volume."


• United Nations Environment Programme, Buildings and Climate Change: Status, Challenges and Opportunities (2007)
  
  "The pattern of energy use in buildings is strongly related to the building type and the climate zone where it is located. The level of development also has an effect. Today, most of the energy consumption occurs during the building's operational phase, for heating, cooling and lighting purposes, which urges building professionals to produce more energy-efficient buildings and renovate existing stocks according to modern sustainability criteria. The diversity of buildings, their distinct uses and extended life cycle pose a challenge for the prescription of energy conservation measures. Specific solutions are needed for each situation, such as for the construction of new buildings, for the renovation of existing ones, for small family houses and for large commercial complexes."—Executive Summary.


• United States Government Accountability Office (GAO), Coastal Barrier Resources System: Status of Development That Has Occurred and Financial Assistance Provided by Federal Agencies (Report to the Honorable Wayne T.Gilchrest, House of Representatives, GA-07-356) (March 2007)
  
  "An estimated 84 percent of CBRS units remain undeveloped, while 16 percent have experienced some level of development. About 13 percent of the developed units experienced minimal levels of development—typically consisting of less than 20 additional structures per unit since becoming part of the CBRS, and about 3 percent experienced significant development—consisting of 100 or more structures per unit—since becoming part of the CBRS. According to federal and local officials, CBRA has played little role in the extent of development within the CBRS units that we reviewed because they believe that other factors have been more important in inhibiting development. These include (1) the lack of suitably developable land in the unit; (2) the lack of accessibility to the unit; (3) state laws discouraging development within coastal areas; and (4) ownership of land within the unit by groups, such as the National Audubon Society, who are seeking to preserve its natural state. In units that GAO reviewed where development had occurred, federal and local officials also identified a number of factors that have contributed to development despite the unit’s inclusion in the CBRS. These include (1) a combination of commercial interest and public desire to build in the unit, (2) local government support for development, and (3) the availability of affordable private flood insurance."—What GAO Found.

New Findings on Rapid Orbital Decay Make Global Warming Look Like A Party

Cumulative Effects
By J.B. Ruhl

Move over Global Climate Change--Rapid Orbital Decay (ROD) puts you to shame.

Research to be published in the journal Astronometica next week discusses findings by researchers at the Canadian Solar and Planetary Institute (CANSPI) showing that the Earth's orbital decay rate has spiked in the past 50 years. All planets experience orbital decay, explained CANSPI research team leader Gustaf Housty, but "Earth's is getting out of synch. Basically we're falling into the sun faster than we should be. If this keeps up, we'll reach Maximum Critical Ambient Temperature (MAXCAT), the temperature at which life as we know it on Earth is no longer possible, about two billion years sooner than we should under natural conditions."

Researchers are still debating the cause of ROD, but the prevailing theory is...buildings. That's right, the accumulated effect of buildings, especially when concentrated in cities, has been to put some drag on Earth's rotational speed, which has a negative effect on orbital speed. Also, the weight of buildings has shifted Earth's overall center of balance, which has thrown us off orbit just a bit. But as Housty explained, "you don't have to alter these things much to get some pretty dramatic effects in terms of ROD."

According to Housty's model, if we were to stop erecting any new buildings today, ROD would continue and lead to Earth reaching MAXCAT in about 2.3 billion years, which is way ahead of schedule. If we were to keep erecting buildings at the current pace, however, we'll hit MAXCAT in about 1.2 billion years. Housty observed that "it may not mean much in the next 100 years, but I wouldn't want to be around in a billion years. It's going to get really hot."

Policy makers have responded quickly with ideas for how to reduce ROD. One idea is to require new buildings to purchase height and weight offsets. For example, Mountain Removal Offsets (MRO) would involve removing mountains in major ranges such as the Alps to offset rotational drag. For obvious reasons, China, Switzerland, and Chile are looking into this option. And Weight Balance Offsets (WBO) would involve creating low-lying expanses of heavy materials in strategic locations to counter urban building weight. One possibility is to create vast fields in the Outback and Sahara of spent nuclear waste "pancakes" (uranium is very heavy) encased in lead.

The U.S., a leader in market-based approaches, is proposing that anyone who takes down a tall building could sell Building Removal Credits (BRC) to others. The goal of the BRC program, says State Department spokesman Kevin Feerble, is "No Net Buildings." But the Europeans are arguing for taking us back to the building levels of 1950, which would add another 500,000 years until MAXCAT. EU Transportation Directorate Underdirector Max Von Hop suggested that "it's really not too much to ask that we cut back to 1950 levels to buy future generations another 500,000 years, is it? The U.S. needs to move off the No Net Buildings message soon."

As one might expect, the building industry already is trying to debunk Housty's model. Indeed, Professor Conradi Fiabilite of Itlay's prestigious University of Construction and Physical Sciences argues that Housty's model fails to account accurately for the cooling of the Sun. As he explains, "the problem isn't MAXCAT, it's MINCAT. We're all going to be popsicles in about 1.6 billion years. Look at Mars." But Fiabilite does credit Housty with finding the link between buildings and the Earth's orbit. He envisions us placing huge blocks of heavy material on barges in the oceans and moving them strategically to "steer" Earth between MAXCAT and MINCAT for billions of years. According to him, "someday we'll be orbiting next to Mercury as the Sun is on its last gasps, but we'll be fine. Buildings and floating 'orbital adjustment structures' are going to save us."

Then there's the argument being made by Justin McHatcherty of the Bioevolutionary Research Center in Seattle that none of this is very meaningful. He explains that "under any of these models, ROD is still happening so slowly that we'll naturally evolve to adapt to changing temperature. We'll get much smaller over time, maybe back to prehistoric size, and live in underground cities where the temperature is constant. We'll be much smarter than prehistoric humans, of course, so they'll be nice cities." Overall, therefore, McHatcherty is more concerned about the immediate effects of Global Climate Change, which is likely to happen faster that we can adapt.

Clearly, Housty's research is likely to spark a lot of debate over the next several years, which I will keep covering here. Have a nice day.