Archive for August, 2009
Common Policies For Common Good
Common Policies For Common Good
Concerns about dangerous climate change and large biodiversity loss are visible throughout the world: unprecedented rates of temperature increases and species extinctions are a reality. In 1999 Dr. Peter Raven, president of the International Botanical Congress, published a paper in which he states that “current extinction rate is now approaching 1,000 times the background rate and may climb to 10,000 times the background rate during the next century, if present trends continue. At this rate, one-third to two-thirds of all species of plants, animals, and other organisms would be lost during the second half of the 21st century, a loss that would easily equal those of past extinctions”. He then outlined seven “Points to Slow the Extinction of Plants”, including financial and capacity building instruments to help developing countries protect 80% of the world’s biodiversity they host. As far as climate change is concerned, the responsibility of developed countries is high in providing the most threatened regions in the world with good instruments to cope with this challenge (or at least examples of them to implement autonomously).
Climate change plays a significant role in this human-induced mass extinction because it is increasing the already large biodiversity losses caused by habitat destruction and fragmentation, water and air pollution, introduction of invasive species. Marine ecosystems will be affected by an increase in sea temperature, but also by ocean acidification, because of the higher concentration of dissolved carbon dioxide (carbonic acid): in fact this reduces the shell formation ability in many organisms. Polar (and mountain) ecosystems are particularly vulnerable to climate change, with effects such as thawing permafrost, decreased snow cover, losses from ice sheets and changes in ocean temperatures. Large impacts on Arctic biodiversity are already evident, pictures of polar bears wandering lost on small icebergs being a scary and sad symbol of the era we live in (even former U.S. President Bush, at the end of his mandate, recalled this image to show his fellow citizens he cared about climate change …)
In this rapidly changing environment it is therefore extremely important that conservation plans include adaption measures for ecosystems accordingly to the predicted regional climate patterns (but models need still to be improved a lot at this scale): dynamic approaches are needed to set good options for future ecosystems and landscapes. It will be necessary to facilitate the movement of species to new geographical locations, as they follow the shifting habitats.
The public concern is growing: in Africa last 28 February young people organized a march from impoverished urban areas to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro to raise awareness on climate change, together with the Kilimanjaro Initiative and the UN’s global UNite to Combat Climate Change campaign. It seems though that the global attention on climate change doesn’t fully consider implications for biodiversity yet: while the negotiations and speeches on climate issues are very popular (and the Nobel Prize was awarded to the entire IPCC together with Al Gore in 2007) the meetings and decisions of the Convention on Biological Diversity (http://www.cbd.int/) don’t raise comparable interest. Is it because the anthropocentrism is (still) the prevailing philosophy and animals and plants are mainly seen by people as beautiful “supporting actors” on the planet we live on? Right when we are losing control of the global situation it is probably time to reflect on our role of dominant species and acknowledge the fundamental contribution of other organisms to our livelihoods, despite many of us live in the so called Technosphere.
Policies to protect the climate avoiding irreversible effects on the ecosystems need to be strongly interconnected with conservation strategies: preserving natural areas while helping them adapt to the changing climate means hopefully to leave better, or not as compromised, ecosystems to future generations. Climate and biodiversity, though ever changing and evolving, are common goods and they need common policies: if we reduce the human Ecological Footprint both the atmosphere and the biosphere will be better off (and our children and grandchildren living in them).
Written by Luca Marazzi on behalf of Responding to Climate Change.
For further information on Climate Change please visit the Responding to Climate Change website – http://www.rtcc.org
The Ecological Footprint is a measure of human demand on the Earth’s ecosystems. It represents the amount of biologically productive land and sea area needed to regenerate the resources a human population consumes and to absorb and render harmless the corresponding waste. Using this assessment, it is possible to estimate how much of the Earth (or how many planet Earths) it would take to support humanity if everybody lived a given lifestyle. For 2005, humanity’s total ecological footprint was estimated at 1.3 planet Earths – in other words, humanity uses ecological services 1.3 times faster than Earths can renew them. See also: http://www.footprintnetwork.org/
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In my four-article series on water use (The Resource Matrix), I took you on a journey to reveal the layers of The Resource Matrix in order to help you understand how water will be a highly contested commodity tomorrow, possibly as much as oil is fought over today. You learned about your water footprint and a website where you can calculate it, virtual water and virtual water transfers, whereby choices here affect water availability elsewhere, to the point of some people not having enough water to drink in order to produce inexpensive dyed cotton, along with insane choices such as growing crops in the desert. You learned that on average it takes 1854 to 3000 gallons to produce one pound of beef. Yep, it’s it’s been a great journey through the sidetrip city of the Resource Matrix. Today, we’ve found the on-ramp to the Green Lighting Interstate and are driving to take a look at water use in generating electricity. For a simple reason. It takes a lot of water to produce electricity. How much? 5% of all US water? 10%? Can’t be as high as 25%? Electricity and water? I thought the issue was fossil fuels and greenhouse gases The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) estimated water use in the United States in 2000. Their grand total: 408 billion gallons per day withdrawn for all uses. The number 1 spot, weighing in at 48%, was thermoelectric power. Irrigation earned the runner-up prize at 34%. The 195 billion gallons need to come from somewhere, and actions have consequences. Environmental ones, as in 40 million fish in the Great Lakes killed each year due to being trapped against water intake devices. That’s a lot of Friday night fish dinners. How much water is used in generating electricity? Large fossil fuel and nuclear plants require incredible quantities of water for cooling and ongoing maintenance. Water for thermoelectric power is used in generating electricity with steam-driven turbine generators. It uses 48% of all water in the US. According to the Pace Energy and Climate Center, the amount of water used for power plant cooling varies by each specific power plant’s electricity generating technology and size. Nuclear reactors require the most water for cooling, and baseload fossil fuel power plants come in second. The Salem Nuclear Generating Station alone takes 3 billion gallons a day from the Delaware Bay, according to the Pace Energy and Climate Center. Nationally: These numbers are starting to sound like the same ones the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve Bank use. Imagine watching your favorite science program where astronomers explain that the universe is 78 billion light-years wide (78 billion units of 5,878,630,000,000 miles). There is absolutely nothing in our experience to help us wrap our mind around it. How much is 3 billion gallons per day? The Delaware Bay feeds Salem Nuclear Generating Station 3 billion gallons a day. Imagine this rectangle: a football field with end zones (360 feet long x 160 feet wide). Then add to it walls on each side of the rectangle to create a container to hold the 3 billion gallons you pour into it. How high do you need to make those walls to contain 3 billion gallons? 6915 feet high. Or 1.3 miles. Maybe 6915 feet high is still hard to imagine. So how deep do you cover the field in order to feed the Salem plant every minute? Answer: 5 feet deep. Every minute. 48% of all water use: We’re Number One! How much is 195 billion gallons per day? Using the USGS figure for 2000, thermoelectric power nationwide used 195 billion gallons a day, or 48% of all water used in the US. My guess is the water use has grown since then. How high are the walls on our football field now? 449,475 feet or 85 miles high. We’re back to US Treasury and astronomy numbers again. So, let’s get a higher-level view to help us. Lake Erie holds 116 cubic miles of water. Nationally, thermoelectric power uses 195 billion gallons a day – or 64.2 cubic miles a year. We drain Lake Erie every 22 months. But the water used is returned to its source. So what’s the issue about water use? Power generation returns 98% of the water back to its source (bay, lake, river, ocean). It’s the environmental consequences. The Pace Energy and Climate Center explains it neatly: Withdrawal of large volumes of surface water for either power plant cooling or hydropower generation can kill fish, larvae and other organisms trapped against intake structures (impinged), or swept up (entrained) in the flow through the different sections of a power plant. Examples include: The diversion of water out of the river removes water for healthy in-stream ecosystems: The cleanest kilowatt is the one never used: Back to those compact fluorescent lamps and LEDs PowerScorecard.org explains the solution: By re-directing electricity dollars to support environmentally benign energy resources, consumers are empowered, in states that offer supply choice, to influence the existing generating resources that are deployed to meet demand. They can also support the construction of new and cleaner electricity resources that will be built to meet overall growth in demand in the future. By supporting these power options, consumers can minimize many water use and consumption impacts. Still, directing your dollars to cleaner power products in no way helps remediate damages that already have occurred. Consumers can stop the construction of new hydropower facilities or alter conditions of siting and operation, but they cannot undo previous environmental degradation that occurred at existing hydropower facilities. In short, reduce your use of electricity. More Info: We used several sources for this article, including the PowerScorecard.org website, which is produced by the Pace Energy and Climate Center, which is part of the Pace University School of Law’s Center for Environmental Legal Studies, Pace University, White Plains, New York. On PowerScorecard, you can get: Thanks for letting us keep you updated . . . To your green, brighter future, Cinnamon Alvarez, A19 And now I would like to offer you free access to powerful info on energy efficiency that’s easy to read and cuts through all this “green” information clutter — so you can literally start making positive changes today. You can access it now by going to: http://www.a19.com/pub/articles/ From Cinnamon Alvarez: Founder, A19 — woman-owned green manufacturer of hand-made ceramic lighting fixtures
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Water Used in Generating US Electricity