A carbon-neutral oasis in the desert

I guess someone had to be first:

It may seem strange that the emirate of Abu Dhabi, one of the planet's largest suppliers of oil, is planning to build the world's first carbon-neutral city.

But in fact, it makes a lot of financial sense. The 3.7-square-mile city, called Masdar, will cut its electricity bill by harnessing wind, solar, and geothermal energy, while a total ban on cars within city walls should reduce the long-term health costs associated with smog.

Masdar will be filled with shaded streets to encourage walking. A solar-powered transit system will take you to the airport.

(HT: Gristmill)

The usefulness of "Energy Independence"

TigerHawk offers a nice discussion of why politicians who talk about 'energy independence' are being disingenuous. The concept, of course, is popular because it provides a way to get hawkish types who want to quit playing nicely with the middle east on the same side with warm fuzzy enviros. The post offers a couple good arguments against it: focusing on "supporting" the declining American oil industry (subsidizing it) translates to a failure to focus on actual reduction of fossil fuel use, and American fossil fuels production will never be enough to make us 'energy independent' without dramatic changes in our energy habits. The post also wants to know how come, if we're so concerned about having economic ties to politically unstable regions, we don't hear politicians calling for 'diamond independence' or 'cheap electronics independence,' given that those products also come from countries with "dodgy" politics. The answer, I think, is that interruptions to our supply of oil are disruptive on a level way beyond what would happen if we suddenly couldn't import African diamonds or Korean electronics. Diamonds suitable for use in research applications and jewelry are already made in labs; electronics can be acquired from other countries for a tiny increase in cost. Oil flow, though, affects pretty much every aspect of daily life; the threat of cutting us off is a powerful threat.

The post concludes:

Anthropogenic global warming is a very good reason to cut fossil-fuel consumption, but that means grubby American coal as well as greasy foreign oil. It has nothing to do with “energy independence.”

True. But a lot depends on where the 'energy independence' talk leads to -- if it results in real action to address fossil fuel use and efficiency, I'm willing to go along with it for awhile, if only to get the U.S. acclimated to a new way of thinking about energy.

Forbidden or compulsory -- take your pick.

This enjoyable TigerHawk post discusses the concept of painting all city rooftops white, to increase their albedo and thereby slow (or reverse?) global warming; he cites some evidence that doing this would raise earth's albedo from 0.29 to 0.30, which could lower global temp by as much as 1º C, which would effectively undo all the global warming since the beginning of the industrial revolution. The post notes that this is exactly the sort of easy, painless thing anyone with a shred of environmental consciousness should be willing to do, but that many US zoning restrictions and community covenants prohibit this. The best part of the post:

The obvious libertarian answer is to pass a federal law that declares that any state or local law or restrictive covenant may not be enforced to prevent the owner of property from painting his roof or driveway to raise its albedo. The obvious Gorean answer is to require that all building owners paint their roofs (and, for that matter, driveways and parking lots) white by 2010, with an extensive government program to specify the type of paint to be used, an inspection regime to be sure that it has happened, and subsidies to be paid for by a new tax on the "rich."

What a charming synopsis of the problem that undermines attempts at coalition-building, even where both sides are in agreement as to the fundamental goals, as enviros and scientifically-minded libertarians often are on this.

'Fugees from a third world, environmentally stressed country

(Apologies to Wyclef Jean.)

Jeff Sachs, head of Columbia University's Earth Institute, is all worked up over climate change, particularly the possibility of millions of 'climate change refugees,' those who are motivated to migrate because of environmental stress. Sachs catalogues his guesses about what will happen in India, Africa, and Asia in the next few decades (water stress, mainly) and calls for economists, hydrologists, agronomists, and climatologists to get on with it and figure out a solution. He notes:

Some hard-hit places will be salvaged by better infrastructure that protects against storm surges or economizes on water for agriculture. Others will shift successfully from agriculture to industry and services. Yet some places will be unable to adjust altogether, and populations are likely to suffer and to move.

Interesting description -- sounds like the history of human evolution and migration, dangerously accelerated. But okay: the world is different now. Smaller, fewer natural resources left, more full of people; there's no place left to absorb displaced populations. (Remember the US trying to absorb a million Katrina evacuees?) One could argue, though, that this is merely the speeding up of an inevitable process; we were bound to run out of space and/or stuff eventually.

Some possible outcomes:

1. Space colonization. Well, obviously. Will have to happen sooner or later, but not clear whether it can happen quickly enough to solve the 'climate refugee' problem.

2. Genetically modified crops. Despite the historical hostility of environmentalists to GM crops, they stand a good chance of mitigating the water problem -- crops that require lots of water (corn, rice, cotton, grass for pasturing) can be engineered to need less. This can't hold off Malthus forever, but will almost certainly be part of the solution.

3. Limited population growth. Not a bad idea (until aforementioned space colonization is feasible) but also not too likely, going by recent stories of Chinese women using fertility drugs to circumvent the government's one-birth policy.

4. More efficient food distribution. By most estimates, North America already has the production capability to feed the whole world; rotting grain in Iowa silos represents an alarming combination of market failure and government failure. There is surely some way to improve this.

5. Efficient clean energy. Another no-brainer -- we already knew that even running all our current alternative energy sources at max capacity, and continuing to burn fossil fuels at the same rate, we're on track to run out of energy by 2050 or so. A point about this, though: if climate change produces catastrophic drought in the middle east, coal and oil prices will likely plummet, making it easier to rationalize continuing reliance on these sources, at least until these economies collapse completely.

Bio-Diesel?

I'm not 100% percent sure how to take this (European) series of ads for Diesel clothing. They're either so oblivious it's terrifying, or so ironic it's exquisite. More examples here-- the tagline in the bottom left corner is 'Global-Warming Ready.'