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Green building can give part of the answer for zero carbon emissions from the building sector. But what would a truly zero carbon building look like that had no carbon impact at all from construction, through occupancy through demolition?
The Chicago Climate Exchange is a non-Kyoto trading platform for carbon credits generated in the United States. It is a voluntary exchange, but once signed on the participation and carbon reduction committment is legally binding.
My question is, can this same model be applied on a small geographic basis? How well does this exchange concept scale down? Can it be used to create a business case for carbon reduction at a local level? Could a local exchange be set up that would allow carbon credits to be traded by local businesses and individuals?
Here are some questions related to efficiency:
Can the market deal with energy efficiency in a way that slows down the growth in GHG emissions?
Is energy price alone sufficient to drive efficiency such that absolute emissions are decreased?
Is it necessary to subsidize (give away) energy efficient new technology to replace older, less efficient technology that is in place?
At what point do efficiencies backfire because reductions in emissions from improved efficiency are swamped by new growth?
What Part of 'Global Warming' Don't We Get?
By Bill McKibben, Prairie Writers Circle
Posted on October 25, 2005, Printed on October 25, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/27034/
Forget about the hurricanes. Put them out of your mind. We'll never know for sure that any particular hurricane is caused by global warming, so just don't think about them. Instead, concentrate on the other evidence for climate change that's appeared recently:
Recently, we had one of our commenters, Zeno Swijtink, of Sonoma State University, say that biodiesel might not be all that great from a carbon neutral point of view. He said:
Running a vehicle on biodiesel does not give 100% GHG reduction in my bookkeeping. Biodiesel is a carbon fuel and the atmosphere does not care where the released greenhouse gasses came from. The usual argument that the biodiesel carbon partakes in the short carbon cycle while gasoline carbon partakes in the long carbon cycle is, I believe, fallacious. CO2 uptake thru both these cycles does not care how the CO2 was released. So to assess our progress towards GHG reductions we need to count release from biodiesel oxydation at their full value when we estimate anthropogenic GCC.
The way to answer this is to look at the carbon cycle:
I think that sometimes a "knee jerk" reaction of environmentalists is, "Let's pass a law!" However, especially in protecting the commons, there is no easy way to incentivize the desired behavior. So I propose that there is some minimum set of regulations that will be required for communities to pass, in order to significantly reduce GHG emissions from new development, from existing building stock and from transportation.
These new regulations are:
1. A green building ordinance
2. A "energy efficiency upgrade on remodel or sale" ordinance
3. A carbon tax
4. Land use/zoning regulations
Continue reading "What is "necessary" legislation for GHG reduction" »
Did some more analysis on temperature data in Sonoma County. This time the data is from the Santa Rosa C weather station, and goes back to 1950. Santa Rosa is the biggest city in Sonoma County, and has experienced the largest population growth. Interestingly, this data also shows warming, about 2 degrees, in the average of annual high and low temperatures
However, there is a fundamental difference with the Graton data.
Shepherd Bliss has written a report from Bioneers, an annual conference in Marin County that attracts thousands of environmentalists from around the world. This year, there was a presentation on global warming by Bill McKibben. Shepherd describes McKibben's presentation:
Bill McKibben--author of the ground-breaking book “The End of Nature”—followed by asserting that “people are finally paying attention to global warming. It is no longer a prospective problem; it is crashing down upon us now.” He observed that “the SUV age came to an end when people saw on TV hundreds of gas-sucking SUVs run out of gas leaving Houston and become stranded in flight from the hurricanes.”
You can read Shepherd's entire report here.
I was curious about whether the effect of warming would show up in our county. I got the temperature data from our local weather station going back to 1949. I calculated the average annual high temperature for each year and plotted it on the above graph. I drew a linear trendline through the data. You can see that the average temperature has increased 3-4 degrees during this time. This doesn't necessarily mean we are seeing this amount of warming over this time period, but it is pretty suspicious. This is an example of how a layperson can see the effects of global warming in their own locality.
I got the temperature data here.
Shepherd Bliss, a Sonoma County writer and activist, has written a beautiful essay titled, "Water and Wind as Dance Partners and the Warming Globe". It describes the interplay of water, wind and human civilization in his second home, Hawai'i.
Water and Wind as Dance Partners and the Warming Globe
by Shepherd Bliss
Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Jova were watched closely here in the tropics. We have a personal stake in the swirling connection when water and wind meet, become dance partners and take a spin on the floor. I have this image of the roof on my house lifting off and rain rushing down on me and my stuff. A mere tropical storm transferred part of a neighbor’s roof to their yard. As we recently saw in the Gulf Coast, the elemental water/ wind partnership can break down stout human structures -- even cities like New Orleans -- with a mere gesture....Link to article
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