10 Ways to Cut Your Home Heating Bill

Let’s keep our homes warm, happy, clean and green this winter! The green revolution isn’t just about doing right by the planet. It’s also about doing right by our pocketbooks.

1. Clean energy – A clean furnace is an efficient furnace. Check your filters, check your ducts, dust off radiators (dust insulates them and keeps heat in). Replacing a furnace filter is cheap, and dirty filters cut your efficiency and can cut your furnace’s lifespan. Get your furnace inspected and maintained - a badly tuned furnace wastes $30 a month on average, so this pays for itself very quickly. And make sure your vents aren’t blocked by furniture – that cuts efficiency, too.
2. Heat Smart – First, drop the temp; each degree you cut clips 3 to 8 percent from your bill. Next, get wet – moist air holds heat better and FEELs warmer. You can add a humidifier to your furnace, buy a freestanding one, or just keep a kettle on the stove pumping out steam. You’ll feel the difference within minutes.
3. Thermostat Timer – This is actually the only piece of high-tech on our list. Putting it in is an easy do-it-yourselfer; programming can be trickier, but once you get the hang of it you can save 10 percent or more. Many even now come pre-programmed to drop the temperature during down-times, like work hours during the day or when you’re all in bed at night, and then bring up the temp just before you come home or wake up, so you’re always comfy.

   

4. Circulation – Heat rises. Use your ceiling fans to circulate air (or install them if you don’t them, and get the cooling benefit in summer as well). Cut back on using kitchen and bathroom ventilation fans for the season – they suck your valuable warm air right out of the house. Also, close off rooms that aren’t being used, and shut the heat vents in there.

   

5. Insulate - Got insulation? Better check – bats can sag, leaving gaps, and animals can slip in, making holes. Now’s the time to make sure by taking a quick look. Also, make sure you’re covered all over – attics and crawl spaces might have been overlooked. Need insulation? This can be a big ticket item, but compared to the average $1900 cost of heating a home, it’s a no-brainer. And adding insulation doesn’t just save you money now – it adds to your home’s value. Along with replacing old drafty windows, and replacing an old, inefficient furnace, this is one investment that pays off both in the short term and the long term. Talk to your bank about an equity credit line…
6. Mind the gaps! – I’m sure by now you know to caulk and weather-strip around doors and windows, and make sure to cover gaps between doors and thresholds. But there are a few places you might not have thought of, like electrical outlets. On outside walls, these can make a gap in your insulation blanket – you can buy small foam inserts that go under the switchplates. You should also check around pipes under sinks, and fill any gaps with foam. Of course, you should make a point of keeping all doors and windows closed – and close garage doors as quickly as possible. And close the chimney damper! That alone can hit you 10 percent. Putting a blanket over your fireplace screen when the fireplace isn’t in use can also help cut drafts.
7. Use the sun! – You don’t have to have an expensive passive solar setup installed (although that would be great) – you’ve got windows, so let the sun in during the day. It’ll warm the interior, providing free watts of energy.
8. Windows of opportunity - When the sun goes away at night (or on cloudy days) keep the blinds, shades and curtains closed to prevent heat from radiating out through the glass (you could lose 10 to 20 percent of your heat that way). Installing heavy drapes is good, but you can also install 2-mil plastic sheeting that ups the insulation factor hugely (put it up with blue painter’s tape, which leaves less residue). Replace those ancient windows if you can.
9. Snug in your bed – A thick down comforter might cost a bit, but if you’re bundled up and cozy you can save a bundle by cutting the heat to 60 degrees while you snooze.
10. Wood stove – Depending on where you live, installing a wood-burning stove can save you quite a bit. Just make sure you run it efficiently (pointers here). And splitting wood warms you up like you wouldn’t believe.

One other important tip - get everyone in the family involved! Emphasize the planet-saving aspects, and the kids will be happy to join in. And that’s a lot easier than yelling at them 10 times a week to keep the darn door closed….

Image Credits:

• (Flickr Creative Commons image by Zeusandhera)
• (Flicker Creative Commons image by westy559)
• (Ceiling Fan by NorthernFan.com)
• Ultratouch Natural Cotton Fiber Insulation
• (Flicker Creative Commons image by Phototrope)
• (Flickr commons photo by sweet mandy kay)
• Woodstove by Quadrafire

Why Hasn't BP Funded the $20-Billion Escrow Account Yet? Do They Think They'll Get a Better Deal from Republicans?

Remember the $20 billion compensation fund that President Obama got BP to agree to? The money would be held in escrow to assure that the thousands of people hurt - both economically and physically - by the Gulf oil disaster would be compensated.

Well, it turns out BP has been dragging its feet. And hasn't actually put any of the money into the account yet, well over a month later.

Writing over at DailyKos, Jed Lewison speculates on what this means:

You have to wonder if BP would still be dragging its heels if leading Republicans like Barton, Tom Price, and Michele Bachmann hadn't taken the oil giant's side and criticized the escrow account as a slush fund. Although those GOPers did receive public backlash for siding with BP, they also sent a signal to BP that Republicans would go easy on the company if they were to recapture Congress this fall. So, from BP's perspective, it might make sense to try to negotiate a deal with an escape valve in the hope that GOP victory would allow them to shirk their responsibilities altogether.

Check out the full story at our sister-blog, FailDrill.com

(US Coast Guard Photo)

(From Red Green and Blue)

George Lakoff Advises Democrats Against "Disaster Messaging"

Why have the Democrats been having such a hard time passing environmental legislation? And everything else, for that matter?

Despite control of both houses of Congress and the White House, even the measures they get through (like the Health Care Reform, or the pending energy bill) are watered-down, half-baked compromises that Democrats have to hold their noses to vote for and Republicans still demonize as socialistic budget-busting disasters.[social_buttons]

George Lakoff explains it all. He says the Democrats' messaging is a disaster... or rather, the Democrats have been falling into the pattern he calls "Disaster Messaging".

Here's his bullet points on how the process goes:

• The Republicans outmessage the Democrats. The Democrats, having no effective response, face disaster: They lose politically, either in electoral support or failure on crucial legislation.

• The Democrats then take polls and do focus groups. The pollsters discover that extremist Republicans control the most common (“mainstream”) way of thinking and talking about the given issue.

• The pollsters recommend that Democrats move to the right: adopt conservative Republican language and a less extreme version of conservative policy, along with weakened versions of some Democratic ideas.

• The Democrats believe that, if they follow this advice, they can gain enough independent and Republican support to pass legislation that, at least, will be some improvement on the extreme Republican position.

• Otherwise, the pollsters warn, Democrats will lose popular support — and elections — to the Republicans, because “mainstream” thought and language resides with the Republicans.

• Believing the pollsters, the Democrats change their policy and their messaging, and move to the right. • The Republicans demand even more and refuse to support the Democrats.

Sounds pretty lame, doesn't it? Not much of a recipe for governing.

Lakoff goes into great detail how "framing" works - how the brain works new ideas that come along into a conceptual framework, and how that framework can be manipulated by the media, by talk radio, by politicians, etc.

In politics, the high-level frames are moral frames. There are opposing conservative and progressive moral systems. Important political concepts are “contested,” overlapping in some classic cases, but diverging in content depending on the moral system. Thus, vital political concepts like Life, Freedom, Responsibility, Government, Accountability, Equality, Fairness, Empathy, Property, Security, and so on are contested.

A major goal of political framing is to get your version of contested concepts accepted by the voters. Messaging can then use these concepts and their language freely and effectively. That is how framing works generally — independent of whether the frames are used in politics. In politics, bi-conceptual voters can shift back and forth on an issue, depending on how the issue is framed in terms of higher-level political systems.

And that's where things break down. Lakoff says that conservative have a lean, mean, meme-spreading machine, through institutions like think tanks, talk radio, and booking agencies that get conservative thinkers booked on TV. They spread conservative frames not just as talking points, but as long-term, morally based absolutes.

Democrats don't do that. He says they tend to work issue by issue and short-term.

Democrats tend not to understand how framing works, and often confuse framing (which is deep, long-term, systematic, morality-based, and conceptual) with messaging (which is shallow, short-term, ad hoc, policy-based, and linguistic).

This situation puts Democrats at a messaging disadvantage relative to conservatives, which leads to conservative victories. Hence the regular need for disaster messaging.

So what can Democrats do?

Polling doesn't work.

The general Democratic response to an electoral setback is to poll the public. Many people repeat the messaging they've been getting: conservative messaging and conservative framing.

The pollsters therefore report that the “mainstream” of Americans prefer the conservative language and logic, and the policies that go with them. The pollsters then suggest moving to right to go to where the public is. They then construct and test messages that move enough to right to satisfy the “mainstream.” They also construct “good arguments.” If the “good arguments” activate the conservative worldview, the conservative position will just get stronger in the brains of the voters.

When the Democrats use conservative language, they activate more than the conservative framing on the given issue. They also activate and strengthen the high level, deep conservative moral frames. This tends to make voters more conservative overall — and leads them to choose the real conservative position on the given issue, rather than the sort of conservative version provided by the democrats.

There's lots more, including his suggestions for alternatives - for starters, building up Democratic institutions to take on the conservative ones. He took a stab at that with his Rockridge Institute think tank, but because Democrats didn't get the importance of messaging (and tend not to get scads of money from large corporations), it folded after just five years.

Read Lakoff's whole article here....

George Lakoff is the author of Moral Politics, Don't Think of an Elephant!, Whose Freedom?, and Thinking Points (with the Rockridge Institute staff). He is Richard and Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley, and a founding senior fellow at the Rockridge Institute.

(From Red Green and Blue)

Beef is the Worst - Why Put Oil on Your BBQ?

It's a glorious summer weekend, and folks all over are firing up their grills. But before you shop - today is World Environment Day, so maybe you should think twice about what you're putting on the BBQ, especially after the devastation of the BP Gulf oil disaster.

Beef is, simply, the worst thing you can eat - especially mainstream store-bought beef that comes straight off a factory farm feedlot. Read on to learn why...

In honor of World Environment Day, the UN has issued a new report (PDF Download) that says the best thing we can do to deal with environmental problems, climate change, and fossil fuel dependency is cut back on meat and dairy in our diets. And beef is the worst.
[social_buttons]
We're not suggesting that everyone has to go Vegan tomorrow. But cutting back even a few days a week can have a big impact.

"Impacts from agriculture are expected to increase substantially due to population growth increasing consumption of animal products. Unlike fossil fuels, it is difficult to look for alternatives: people have to eat. A substantial reduction of impacts would only be possible with a substantial worldwide diet change, away from animal products...

Agriculture, particularly meat and dairy products, accounts for 70% of global freshwater consumption, 38% of the total land use and 19% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions."

Where’s the beef?

It’s not down on the farm these days, alas. The healthy, natural beef of years gone by is almost extinct. It has been driven out by cheap beef, raised on gigantic feedlots, fattened on corn. The problem is: corn isn’t healthy for cows, and raising beef this way ultimately isn’t healthy for us either. Here are some things to watch out for and ways to be more healthy when it comes to your beef-related choices.

If you ask children, “What do cows eat?”, they’ll tell you: “Cows eat grass!” Not corn – grass. Kids are smart; smarter, it seems, than the barons of agribusiness, who haven’t figured that part out yet.

Why do farmers feed cows on corn? First, because it’s cheap, thanks to massive federal subsidies. Second, because starchy corn forces cows to fatten up faster. Cattle evolved a complex digestive system to derive nutrition from rangeland grasses; feed them on corn and their digestion goes haywire, causing flatulence, acid stomach, and massive weight gain.

Sickening

This isn’t healthy for cows: with their immune systems damaged, the cows get sick – an amazing array of illnesses, ranging from liver abscesses and infections to dust-inspired respiratory disease. So agribusiness loads them up with antibiotics to keep them alive long enough to get them to the slaughterhouse – and your plates.

This also isn’t healthy for people: this beef ends up lower in nutrients (everything from vitamin A to vitamin E) and higher in fat – the bad kind, cholesterol-boosting fat. And the rampant use of antibiotics in crowded conditions has led to the rise of a new breed of super-bugs that are sickening thousands and possibly millions.

You heard about the spinach that was infected with E. coli 157? There’s no way to prove anything, but it’s likely the infection came from animal waste from a factory farm. Agribusiness likes to say “It could come from over-flying birds or foxes running through the fields,” but you don't find exotic bugs lie E. coli 157 in the guts of wildlife. The most probable source is the vast lakes of animal waste on nearby cattle farms. Remember the acid indigestion the cows get from corn? E. coli 157 doesn’t do well in the guts of normal, grass-fed cattle, but it thrives in the acid environment of corn-fed cows.

This is a growing problem – 199 people got sick during the spinach outbreak and three died, but that’s a drop in the bucket compared to the 20,000 people a year who are infected with E. coli 157 ,and 200 who die. It’s mostly the very young and the very old who are vulnerable; infection from E. coli 157 is the biggest cause of kidney failure in children.

Making Beef out of Oil

The biggest irony: none of this makes any economic sense at all! Nobody would bother feeding corn to cattle if US taxpayers weren’t paying billions of dollars in subsidies to make corn cheap. And consider this: Cornell’s David Pimentel points out that growing all of that corn takes vast amounts of petroleum-based chemical fertilizer.

Because of this dependence on petroleum, Pimentel says, a typical steer will in effect consume 284 gallons of oil in his lifetime. Comments Michael Pollan,

“We have succeeded in industrializing the beef calf, transforming what was once a solar-powered ruminant into the very last thing we need: another fossil-fuel machine.”

Giant agriculture distorts everything. In real agriculture, poop is fertilizer. But we use petroleum products to fertilize the corn, send the corn to giant cattle operations, which churn out massive lagoons of dammed-up poop. It should go back to fertilizer, but it’s such an antibiotic and chemical-laced concoction that it ends up as just another toxic waste-product.

Make a difference

So now you know more of the facts, but what can you do to improve your diet and make a global difference as well? Vegetarians would like you to cut out beef completely, but that’s not totally necessary.

• Cut back on beef (and meat). One or two days a week without meat is the equivalent of switching from a gas-powered sedan to a hybrid. (It’ll also save you money, and is good for your heart).
• Go solar! When you do eat beef, go for free-range or grass-fed. Organic is best – it’s more expensive, true, but remember, you just cut out a day or two of beef, so you can afford to serve better-quality, more nutritious meals for yourself and your children. Better for you, and better the planet.
• Watch your dairy intake, too. Most big dairy producers are as bad as the beef feedlots. Cut back on dairy, or switch to organic for lower impact.
• Watch out for corn in your veggie products! Once you start reading ingredient labels, you’ll be shocked and appalled to see how American processed food is loaded up with corn and corn derivatives (loaded with dairy derivatives, too!). It is a good idea to cut back on processed foods anyway, as they are loaded with all kinds of weird chemicals and additives (many of which are manufactured in bulk in China with minimal safety standards).

UPDATE: Some commenters have referred to a report by UC Davis Prof. Frank Mitloehner that says the UN is wrong, that the numbers for the US (based on 2007 EPA estimates) are actually 3 percent emissions for agriculture vs 26 percent for transportation. I'm betting most folks haven't read the full report - it's incredibly technical and dense. I gave up on page 26.

His criticism was a technical one - that the earlier report did a full life-cycle analysis on beef, looking at things like how much oil was used to grow the corn to feed the cattle (as we talked about in this article), and how much oil was used in transportation of all that feed. Whereas that "well-to wheel analysis" was not done for the transportation industry, so in fact agriculture may NOT have more of a climate impact than transportation (at least in the US).

In other words... the heart of his argument is that the report underestimated the number for transportation.

What he DIDN'T say was that beef had no impact, as some commenters and newspapers are asserting, like The Washington Times under the headlines “Meat, dairy not tied to global warming” and "Forget all that indecorous talk of animal flatulence, cow burps, vegetarianism and global warming. Welcome to Cowgate." (Ironically, Mitloehner was the guy who discovered the issue of cow-belches, in a study for the California dairy industry and the EPA.)

Mitloenher himself has stated, “I didn’t say that there is no reduction in greenhouse gases associated with animal protein consumption, but that it is a relatively small contribution and that consumers can do other things that have greater impact on this.” And that last point is simply his value judgement, not based on his research.

He added, “I think it’s time that we work across the globe really on transferring knowledge and help particularly those areas like India and China to produce in a way that is as environmentally benign as possible. I think we have that responsibility. So it would be nice if we would take some of the politics out of the discussion and really focus on getting things done and resolved and addressed.”

(Portions of this article originally appeared at Ecoble.com)

(Photo from D Sharon Pruitt under a Creative Commons License)

Ocean Dead Zones are Spreading

(Originally appeared at TenthMil.com)

A new type of dead zone is growing off our coasts - low-oxygen regions that kill fish.

“In some spots off Washington state and Oregon , the almost complete absence of oxygen has left piles of Dungeness crab carcasses littering the ocean floor, killed off 25-year-old sea stars, crippled colonies of sea anemones and produced mats of potentially noxious bacteria that thrive in such conditions,” McClatchy news reports.

Dead zones aren’t new - one type of dead zone appears every year at the mouth of major rivers like the Mississippi, where nutrients from farm fertilizers that have been washed into the rivers reach the ocean and serve as food for algae blooms. In the feeding frenzy, the algae use up all the oxygen in the water, and any fish in the area literally suffocate and drown. And the isolated waters of the deep ocean has always been low in oxygen, but sea life in the depths has adapted.

The other type of dead zone is more troubling. These have been happening in places like the Pacific Northwest coast off Oregon and Washington, and until now scientists weren’t sure why they were occurring - they just knew they were growing from year to year. It looks like the deep-see dead zones are spreading, rising toward the surface and even coming close enough to the coastline to affect the fishing there. On the Southern California coast, oxygen levels have dropped 20 percent over the past 25 years.

“The real surprise is how this has become the new norm,” said Jack Barth, an oceanography professor at Oregon State University . “We are seeing it year after year.”

We’ve reported at TENTHMIL about the problem of ocean acidification - as CO2 levels in the atmosphere rise, more is absorbed in the upper levels of the ocean, where it turns to carbonic acid. The rise in acidity is bad for fish all up and down the food chain, but is particularly bad for plankton and shellfish, because it interferes with their shell formation. Barth and other scientists say this is all related - climate change, acidification, and dead zones.

“It’s a large disturbance in the ecosystem that could have huge biological changes,” said Steve Bograd , an oceanographer at NOAA’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center in Southern California .
Bograd has been studying oxygen levels in the California Current, which runs along the West Coast from the Canadian border to Baja California and, some scientists think, eventually could be affected by climate change.

Want even more fun news? Some ocean life is happy with the change - jellyfish, in particular, love it. This may have something to do with the abundance of jellyfish that have been plaguing beaches in the US, Europe and Japan. There’s a world to look forward to - no fish, no shellfish… just beaches that are ankle-deep in jellyfish and slimy algae.

Restoring Florida's Coral Reefs

Coral reefs are among the most productive ecosystems in the ocean, harboring thousands of species from plankton all the way up to fish like the grouper and snapper.

Covering less than a quarter of a percent of the ocean’s surface, coral reefs support twenty-five percent of all marine life!

Coral reefs also among the most beautiful ecosystems in the world – painted canyons of branching coral, waving kelp, and dazzling fish in rainbow colors. They remain a huge attraction to divers and other tourists, and are a mainstay of the economies of South Florida’s Keys and countless other destinations around the globe.

Coral reefs are also among the most threatened environments in the world today. Scientists estimate that 25 percent of the world’s reefs have already been destroyed or badly degraded.
What’s killing the reefs?

• Diseases: staghorn and elkhorn coral have been hit hard by diseases, possibly imported from the Pacific via the Panama canal; they hit corals whose immune systems are already weakened by the other factors. Both species are now listed as threatened.
• Algae: The green growth was kept in check by voracious sea urchins, but disease has wiped out the previously large populations of urchins, and the resulting algae explosion is creating huge problems for coral reefs.
• Cold – this winter’s unusual cold snap, which didn’t affect deep-sea coral, was devastating to corals in shallow waters along the coast.
• Human Damage – sometimes intentional, like when dredging for a shipping channel or building a jetty; or accidental, when a ship runs aground. In either scenario, the reef gets pulverized and takes years to recover.

Florida Aquarium’s Global Reef Institute, is doing something about it.

Coral may look like a plant, but it’s actually a tiny animal – a polyp – that builds a tree-like framework of calcium carbonate to protect itself. In the wild, corals reproduce by larvae, which swim freely until they find a good place to settle down. Then they anchor themselves, and grow. When a piece of coral is smashed to bits – say, in a ship grounding – it can take months or more for the pieces to get back to equilibrium, and if they don’t land in a suitable place, they may never recover.

That’s where the researchers step in.

“We got the idea that if we could grow them in mass, we could start doing restoration,” says Craig Watson, lab director at the University of Florida’s Tropical Aquaculture Laboratory in Ruskin, who is also on the board of the Florida Aquarium. “The concept is to take coral fragments, grow them up to a size where they would be stable and growing, and take them out to a reef that’s damaged and plant them there.” They gather those coral fragments and place them in a pond or tank, where they can be carefully nurtured for six months. Once they’re healthy, they can be taken back to the wild and glued to a reef. “We can get a huge jump on nature rather than waiting for spawning to occur and a single polyp to establish itself,” says Watson. “It’s like planting a seedling rather than a seed.”

The conventional wisdom was that if you grew coral in a land-based condition, it wouldn’t be able to survive when you transplanted it, but that after three years of experimentation they’ve got it down. “In fact,” says Allan Marshall, the aquarium’s vice president of biological operations, “the program proved that inland grown coral does even better – we’ve had a 70 percent success rate.”

Another concern, with transplanted coral, was the threat of diseases. Whenever you pen up a whole lot of organisms in an un-natural environment, there’s a risk that pathogens will run rampant through the population, and then spread to the wild (it’s a problem on big cattle feedlots and salmon farms). Wanting to make sure they could literally give their coral a clean bill of health, the aquarium has worked out a certification program. Having USDA veterinarians monitor the coral closely, then before any coral is released into the wild it is certified as disease-free.

Marshall says the reef ecosystem is a lot like the tropical rainforests: fragile, and feeling the pressure of changes big and small. The best targets for restoration, at least for now, are reefs with physical damage, usually from a boat grounding. There is also funding there, since the shipping companies responsible are supposed to pay for that restoration work. Money is also coming into the project from the Economic Stimulus, via the Nature Conservancy.

“We’re not looking at restoring reefs where [temperature change] is the problem,” notes Watson, “the reasoning being that those spots aren’t going to be good for coral now.”

Sadly, most of their work takes place in an area that’s already supposed to be a protected zone: the Florida Keys National Reef Sanctuary. “The reality is there are a lot of people in South Florida,” says Watson, “so even though the reefs are already protected there are a lot of impacts associated with all those people.” And he adds that they’re seeing good results with other species. For instance, research found that the grouper and snapper for much of the east coast spawned in one small area. “They’ve created a no-take zone right there,” he says, “so now spawning aggregations are taking place without harassment, so that’s going to help with recovery of those fisheries.”

What can you do?
The Nature Conservancy has an Adopt-a-Reef program that allows you to take part directly – this year, it’s a big part of their Earth Day campaign.
http://adopt.nature.org/coralreef/
http://earthday.nature.org/

(Originally appeared at TenthMil.com)

Is Sea Level Rise Really Such a Big Deal?

(Image from Erik Kolstad under a Creative Commons license)

When last weekend’s Chilean earthquake sent people across the Pacific rim scrambling to deal with the risk of a tsunami, there was an added danger.

It was a “King Tide” – the location of the sun and the moon meant their gravitational pull was at its maximum. That, combined with the warmth of the ocean water (warm water expands), meant that low-lying areas were in even more danger of being swamped.

The Chile quake tsunami ended up being pretty mild, but this just highlights a question that most people don’t think about: Why is sea level rise such a big deal?

The question

You’ve probably seen estimates like this:

World sea levels rose 3.1 millimetres (about a tenth of an inch) per year from 1993 to 2003, according to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (you remember them – they shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore). Extrapolating forward, the group estimates global sea levels will rise between 9 and 88 cm (between about 3 inches and three feet) by 2100.

Doesn’t sound like much, does it?

There are some very good reasons you SHOULD be concerned.

The law of averages

Consider: If I told you we could keep your house at an average temperature of 72 degrees, you’d be pretty happy with that, right? That’s a comfortable temperature.

But if I told you that the average temperature would be 72 degrees, but in some parts of the house, the temperature could drop to 32 degrees, and other places would sometimes hit 212 degrees for a few minutes at a time, that wouldn’t be so good, would it? That’s far from comfortable - in fact it’s dangerous.

Averages are funny that way.

... A 2006 study by Australian oceanographers found the rise was much higher, almost one inch every year, in parts of the western Pacific and Indian oceans.

“It turns out the ocean sloshes around,” said the University of Tasmania’s Nathaniel Bindoff, a lead author on oceans in the U.N. reports. “It’s moving, and so on a regional basis the ocean’s movement is causing sea-level variations, ups and downs.

So while the average isn’t enough to cause concern, it’s the extremes we have to worry about – and there, things are getting kind of crazy.

Waves are getting bigger

When you put more energy into a system, you get… more energy in the system.

Just a few years ago, the maximum wave height during winter storms that was expected to hit the Oregon coast was 33 feet. That’s enough to cause serious damage, but people can prepare for it.

But a new study was just completed, and it showed the maximum was up to 46 feet! That’s a 40 percent increase – and it means that all the preparations people have been doing for the past 100 years to protect themselves are useless. There’s a good chance that killer waves will hit sometime in the next few years - eroding coastlines, and smashing docks, houses, and sea-side industries.

And we’re just getting started. The non-partisan Cayman Institute estimates that the cost of rising oceans over the next 40 years will hit an incredible $28 trillion dollars. Most of the mega-cities around the word are seaports, and rising waters of even just a few feet will have a huge impact on port facilities, beachside hotels and resorts, public buildings, and private housing.

For the U.S., the Heinz Center figures that just from homes lost to coastal erosion we’re looking at $530 million per year.

Arctic melting may add to that cost as well.

It’s happening now

Low-lying islands are already seeing damage, like the Pacific nation of Kiribati.

For nations and communities that sit only a few metres above sea level, even small ocean rises engulf their land and send destructive salty water into their food supply, leaving residents with little choice but to flee…

As sea levels have crept higher, the coasts have eroded, corals have been bleached, and islanders’ staple foods such as the giant Babai taro, coconut and banana are unable to grow in salty soil.

Another place the rising waters are already causing damage: Australia’s Torres Straights Islands. Here, too, it’s the extremes. Most days there’s nothing to worry about – but every so often king tides create dangerously high surges that sweep over shoreline houses, docks and buildings.

The ocean is life to these islanders, most of whom make a living by fishing. But now they’re being forced to move to higher ground – if they can find some. A few of the islands are just low-lying stretches of mud that barely project above sea level. Seriously high tides can swamp them.

Places like the Torres Straights Islands are the canaries in our global coal mine. The problem can only get worse. Imagine if every coastal road had to relocated inland, every coastal railroad and pipeline… every city! We’re not that different from the islanders – the vast majority of our population lives near the coast. While the displaced islanders only number in the thousands, in low-lying places like Bangladesh or Florida, the numbers will be in the tens of millions.

We’re still learning just how bad things could get.

Now for the next piece of bad news: When the IPCC made its estimate (the one at the top of the article), it was ONLY based on the expansion of seawater due to warming, plus melting from Himalayan and Andean glaciers. Three years ago, there wasn’t enough data to make any estimates on how much water was flowing into the oceans from melting glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica.

Thanks to satellite images and ground-based research, scientists now think they’re beginning to understand what’s happening in those huge ice-fields, and it’s not good. They now think we could be looking at 1.5 meters (4.5 feet) or higher. And again, that’s on average – some places will be much higher. And it’s just an estimate – meaning it could go lower, or much higher. Taken together, that’s a recipe for disastrous flooding for coastal cities like London, Miami, Amsterdam, New Orleans… and the potential for even more trillions of dollars in damage.

And that’s still a preliminary estimate. We know how bad the Greenland melt-off appears to be at the moment, and it’s much worse than we thought it was just three years ago - we have no idea how bad it will get in reality. For instance, the National Center for Atmospheric Research thinks the Northeastern US in particular could be hit by sea level rises a foot or two higher than the global average because of ocean circulation patterns.

Keep that in mind when you see headlines like “Sea Level Could Rise By 1 Meter By 2100, Experts Say”. That does NOT mean that 1 meter is the worst case situation; in science-speak, that figure is the MOST LIKELY situation, based on our current knowledge.

The actual situation could be much, much worse.

(Originally appeared at Tenthmil.com)

The Farley Mowat Receives a Boarding Party

She’s sailed the seas from the peaceful fjords of Norway to the Whale Wars of the Antarctic’s frigid waters.

She’s faced angry Japanese whalers and mean Canadian Coast Guard cutters. (Mean Canadians? Hard to believe, but there are, indeed, five or six of them.)

(The Farley Mowat in her Sea Shepherd days)

But when we tramped about the Farley Mowat on a chill, steel-grey Halifax morning, the ship was cold and quiet and dark. She’d committed the unforgivable crime of driving near the Canadian seal hunt while green. This created the potential for all manner of danger and loss of life and limb, so the Canadian Fisheries Minister, wishing to avoid an unpleasant scene, had her boarded, her Sea Shepherds’ crew arrested, and the ship impounded and towed to Nova Scotia.

That’s where we found her almost two years later. Her great motors stilled, her generators silent, she’s been sitting dockside, waiting.

Waiting, as it turned out, for TENTHMIL owner Steve Munson. He’d always dreamed of trading in his horse and saddle for a ship and cap’n’s chair, and when he heard the Canadian Government was auctioning off the Farley, he leaped at the chance.

Now he was seeing his 180-foot, 657-ton purchase for the first time – stem to stern, engine room to captain’s quarters. And while things looked a bit chaotic – spare parts strewn in random piles across the galley tables; dust and trash through the crew’s berths – he found the ship in sound shape, if not yet seaworthy.

“She’s looking good,” he said, surveying the deck from the bridge of his vessel. “There’s a little rust, and the wiring is a mess, but the engines are in good shape.”

That’s good, because by summer he wants the Farley Mowat back on the ocean – this time refitted as a research vessel.

The Farley Mowat mobilizes against illegal Japanese whalers:

(Originally appeared at TenthMil.com)

Martin Luther King and the Possibility of Change

"Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.
And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream."

I have friends who don’t believe in change.

They insist that no matter how hard we try, no matter what we do, things won’t get better. They tell me “the man” has too much power, and nothing we do can ever make things right. They don’t believe we can overthrow the fossil fuel dinosaurs of oil and coal in order to move forward with renewable green energy. They don’t believe we can stop the bleeding in habitats across our country and across the globe; stop the bleeding and start the healing.

But I know that’s not true. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.

Barely a year ago, I saw a Black man take the oath of office. Who would have believed that would ever be possible?

We cannot walk alone.
And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.
We cannot turn back.

Let me tell you a little family history, by way of illustration.

My grandfather was born in Poland; as a poor immigrant he put himself through medical school. But he went into private practice, because when he graduated in 1929 there wasn’t a hospital in Toronto that would take a Jew on staff.

Don’t tell me things can’t change.

My mother went to one of the best high schools in Toronto, Harbord Collegiate. She probably could have become a doctor, too - hell, she was the top student in her class; she could have been ANYTHING. But when she met with her vocational counselor, he took a look at her outstanding record and told her “You’re very precise. You’ll probably make a wonderful clerical worker.” In those days, women didn’t become doctors or lawyers or corporation presidents.

Don’t tell me things can’t change.

When Barack Obama was born in 1961, his prospects were even worse than my mothers. She was a woman, and a Jew, but at least she was white. Black men didn’t become doctors or lawyers. Black men were called “Boy” even when they had grey beards. Black men couldn’t eat at lunch counters or piss in public restrooms or stay in hotels. Black men who spoke up or talked back or didn’t know their place were regularly lynched across the South and even in the North – hunted down like animals by angry mobs and hanged or shot or worse.

Don’t tell me things can’t change.

You now that’s not true. You’ve seen it with your own eyes.

I have a dream - that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

Twenty years ago I, as a young reporter, saw Jesse Jackson speak at the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta, and marveled that this was even possible. In what had only a few years before been the heart of segregation country, this man – this Black man - electrified the nation. Everyone knew he could never be elected President, of course, but it was amazing that he had run a serious campaign and earned millions of votes.

Watching that speech, I never dreamed that in just 5 election cycles, I’d be watching a Black man take the oath of office as the 44th President of the United States.

I have a dream - that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

Jesse Jackson lost the nomination to Michael Dukakis, of course, who proceeded to get his ass handed to him by the first George Bush. A bully and an oilman, Bush won that election by ridiculing his opponent, just as he ridiculed his next opponents four years later as “Bozo and Ozone Man”. Yes, that’s what he called Bill Clinton and Al Gore; laughing at them for caring about the planet. But this time he got HIS ass handed to him.

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” – Mahatma Ghandi.

They ignored us and continued pumping their oil and digging their coal. Then they laughed at us – called us “Ozone Man” and “Treehugger” and “Dirty Hippie”.

Now they are fighting us. But the tide has turned.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now… It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment.

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
Change happens because we will it. Change happens because we make it happen. Inch by inch, heart by heart and mind by mind.

Don’t just sit there - do something! Go the the Martin Luther King Jr Day of Service website and find volunteer opportunities in your neighborhood that you could be doing right now!

And if you do, post a comment here and tell us what you did.

(Originally appeared at TenthMil.com)

Obama Budget Cuts Oil Money, Adds Renewables

After criticism for not talking enough about renewables in his SOTU speech, President Obama’s new budget shows us the money - according to a White House statement, more than $6 billion. But is it enough? You’d think that with a total of $3.8 trillion on the table, a few more crumbs could have been tossed toward energy - and planetary - security.

“The President’s budget cuts wasteful spending while making wise investments in innovation and clean energy that will put Americans back to work, save families money and keep our nation competitive in the global marketplace,” said Energy Secretary Steven Chu. “This budget supports new approaches to energy research and invests in the next generation of scientists and engineers, and it will spark new clean energy projects nationwide, including restarting the American nuclear power industry.”

“America must move to a clean-energy economy,” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said. “We believe that the taxpayers should receive a fair return on the resources that belong to them.”

The DOE reports the good news on the fossil fuel front, as the new budget cuts the following:
* Eliminating more than $2.7 billion in tax subsidies for oil, coal and gas industries. This step is estimated to generate more than $38.8 billion dollars in revenue for the federal government over the course of the next 10 years.
* Another $8.5 billion would come in by cutting a tax break oil and gas companies currently get for taxes paid oversees.
* Terminating Ultra-Deepwater exploration program, saving $50 million.
* Canceling planned expansion of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, saving $71 million.
* There’s also a new fee on “non-producing” leases - a modest $4 an acre that would encourage companies are currently sitting on leases without doing any drilling or exploration (even while they try to get more and more areas opened up for leasing) to start doing something with them. That is estimated to bring in $1.15 billion.

There is also word that $2.3 billion in tax breaks for coal will be cut over 10 years as well.

And for green energy:
* More than $217 million in new funding for science research and discovery, including an additional $40 million for the existing Energy Frontier Research Centers program and $107 million for Energy Innovation Hubs.
* $300 million for the Advanced Research Project Agency – Energy (ARPA-E);
* Lending authority to support approximately $40 billion in loan guarantees for innovative clean energy programs. (But $36 billion of that is an increase in guarantees for new puclear plants)
* More than $108 million in new funding to advance and expand research in the areas of wind, solar and geothermal energies.
* $43 to the EPA for greenhouse gas reduction under the Clean Air Act
* There are also millions more in funds for water cleanup, including $300 million to restore the Great Lakes (we’ll be writing more about this)

Energy Boom breaks out some more numbers:

$4.7 billion in clean energy technology investments at DOE, including:
* Nearly $2.4 billion, an increase of $113 million, for energy efficiency and renewable energy programs including $302 million for solar energy, $220 million for biofuels and biomass R&D, $325 million for advanced vehicle technologies, and $231 million for energy efficient building technologies.
* $545 million for advanced coal climate change technologies to focus resources to develop carbon capture technologies with broad applications to advanced coal power systems, existing power plants, and industrial sources.
* $300 million for the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy to accelerate game-changing energy technologies in need of rapid and flexible experimentation or engineering.
* $793 million for clean energy activities and civilian nuclear energy programs, including research and development and infrastructure programs. The budget includes a new cross-cutting research program to address technology needs for all aspects of nuclear energy production.

And as Josie Garthwaite at Green2Tech notes,

Makers of green energy equipment could also benefit under a proposed $5 billion expansion of a tax credit first created as part the stimulus package, which covers up to 30 percent of the costs for new, expanded or retooled greentech equipment factories. That likely comes as welcome news for the companies behind several hundred projects that didn’t make the cut for $2.3 billion in credits awarded last month under the oversubscribed program.

Garthwaite also points to something missing from this budget: revenue from carbon allowances, “signaling dwindling confidence that the Senate will pass a bill with a cap and trade system this year.”

But President Obama doesn’t appear ready to throw in the towel on that one yet. In a press conference, he said “Because our future depends on our ability to break free from oil that’s controlled by foreign dictators, we need to make clean, renewable energy into a profitable kind of energy. That’s why we’ll be working with Congress on legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution and drives the production of more renewable energy.”

You can get the DOE budget here or the Federal Budget here if you want that level of detail.

Do Something Now!

If you want a quick way to get involved, write to your Senator/Congressperson and tell them you support increased money for green energy.

Drop a note to President Obama thanking him for supporting renewables.

(Originally appeared at TenthMil.com)

Take Your Algae Biofuel News With a Grain of Salt

A study released this week says Algae fuels may not be worth it. But critics point out that the study’s data were old – some more than ten years old.

It’s a picture-perfect example of how when it comes to arguments over renewable energy, it’s always good to check your sources.

The Study

Bearing the difficult title “Environmental Life Cycle Comparison of Algae to Other Bioenergy Feedstocks”, the study concluded that Algae for biofuel isn’t as good for the environment as other potential fuel-crops such as switchgrass, canola and corn.

(“What’s that?” you say. “Isn’t corn ethanol bad?” Keep reading…)

One of the study’s lead authors was Andres Clarens, an assistant professor of civil engineering at the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department of the University of Virginia. The New York Times had him explain his findings:

The main reason for this is that fertilizers have to be directly delivered to the pool of water that algae is growing in… And fertilizers are very energy intensive to produce.
Corn and switchgrass can draw nitrogen from soil, which reduces the overall amount of fertilizer required, he said. In addition, crop rotation can help replenish soil nutrients.
“Nutrients are going to be the limiting factor,” Dr. Clarens said. “We’re humans. We need to eat dinner, and you can’t expect to have algae that provides a bunch of energy without feeding it nutrients.”

And it’s true that fertilizers – mostly petrochemical-based – have a nasty carbon footprint. That’s why, for instance, corn-based biofuels have turned out to be such a carbon disaster. But… algae?

Critics cry “Foul!”

The Algal Biomass Assocation responded,

“...We expect such research to be based on current information, valid assumptions and proven facts. Unfortunately, this report falls short of those standards with its use of decades old data and errant assumptions of current production and refining technologies.”

Where’s the issue? Older studies did indeed use fertilizers, but these were small-scale pilot projects. Current plans for large-scale operations call for using wastewater, which is full of nutrients, instead of taking clean water and adding nutrients.

Riggs Eckelberry, chief executive of the algae biofuel company Origin Oil, told The New York Times,

“Identifying wastewater is a homerun for algae production, probably the best there is,” he said. “There are lots of nitrates, and algae love dirty water — they can remove toxins, such as medical drugs from that water.”

And it gets even better: energy is currently used treating wastewater, so using it to grow algae saves that CO2 as well.

The Happy Ending

The authors of the study complained that many of today’s algae companies use proprietary processes – they say that with everybody keeping trade secrets, they shouldn’t be blamed for using ancient data (and in the algae field, 10 years back is practically the dark ages).

It appears Mary Rosenthal of the Algal Biomass Association is talking with Clarens about cooperating on a follow-up study. That should make everybody happy - and provide everyone with accurate and up-to-date science.

(Originally appeared at Tenthmil.com)

Is There an Alternative to Storing Nuclear Waste in Your Backyard?

What’s going on with Nuclear Energy?

Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced a new panel this morning to take a microscope to the future of nuclear power in America. The bi-partisan group will be headed by Lee Hamilton (a Democrat with ties to the intelligence community) and Brent Scowcroft (a Republican with ties to the intelligence community).

From the announcement:

In light of the Administration’s decision not to proceed with the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, President Obama has directed Secretary Chu to establish the Commission to conduct a comprehensive review of policies for managing the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle. The Commission will provide advice and make recommendations on issues including alternatives for the storage, processing, and disposal of civilian and defense spent nuclear fuel and nuclear waste.

For those of you not familiar with their backgrounds, Hamilton was a long-time Democratic Congressman from Indiana, chaired the House Intelligence Committee, and then served on both the 9/11 Commission and the Iraq Study Group. Scowcroft was the National Security Advisor to both Gerald Ford and Bush I but broke with Bush II over the Iraq war, which he publicly advised against (“Don’t Attack Saddam”, WSJ).

What was wrong with Yucca Mountain? Well, it turned out that the proposed storage facility was in someone’s back yard! And that someone was Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Yucca Mountain). Which bodes ill for the fate of the Hamilton/Scowcroft commission. The bottom line on nuclear waste: nobody wants it in their back yard.

Obama’s line about more nukes in his State of the Union got the lowest grade of the entire speech in MoveOn.org’s membership focus group (see our SOTU wrapup article). While there are definitely voices promoting nuclear power, they’re few and far between on the progressive side of politics, where it seems nobody really wants to promote nuclear energy.

(Originally appeared at TenthMil.com)

Red State, Blue State, State of the Union

Okay. President Obama talked about jobs, about energy, about jobs, about climate, and about jobs. Did we mention jobs?

As President, it’s not his job to make everybody happy. But it helps if he wins over more than 51 percent.

Some folks were definitely happy. Steven Cohen, Executive Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, wrote at the Huffington Post:

I continue to root for Barack Obama. Blunt and tough was just the right tone for his first State of the Union. While I expected him to submerge climate policy within the veneer of energy and employment policy, I was impressed that he addressed it so directly

So was “billyparish”, writing at Its Getting Hot In Here:

But from the standpoint of an aspiring green entrepreneur, there was an awful lot to like in the speech. This was the jobs speech it needed to be, and it continued what may be the overarching theme of his presidency, “to lay a new foundation for long-term economic growth.” ...But more than any speech we’ve heard from him before, he put clean energy jobs at the absolute center of his job creation strategy, mentioning clean energy 10 times, solar twice and climate change 3 times. His discussion of U.S. competitiveness in the global economy is entirely framed in the context of the race to develop clean energy technologies.

And Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, was more than pleased:

President Obama issued a clear and unmistakable call to action tonight, charging the Senate to pass the comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation we need to put Americans back to work and lay the foundation for a generation of prosperity, efficiency and security.
The President could not have been more clear: This legislation will jump-start economic growth, reduce our reliance on foreign oil and roll back the pollution that threatens our future. The Senate should pass it without delay.
The President is right on the money. His plan will get Americans back on their feet. Now it’s our job to let our Senators know where we stand. This is our moment. This is our charge, too. It’s time to pass comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation and put America back to work.

It looks like he did well overall. A CBS News poll found 83% of speech watchers approved of Obama’s proposals, although his harshest critics on the right probably weren’t watching to hear some of the olive branches he offered them.

And those olive branches didn’t exactly enamor some of the doves of the left. Progressive organization MovOn.org ran a mega-focus group – more than 10,000 MoveOn members in a real-time “dial test”, providing instant feedback that allowed them to create a moment-by-moment reaction roadmap throughout the speech.

The lowest-rated phrase in Obama’s SOTU? Not too surprising:

That means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country. It means making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development.

This phrase got a better reaction (although Republican legislators laughed out loud at “overwhelming”):

I know that there are those who disagree with the overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change,” he said. “But even if you doubt the evidence, providing incentives for energy efficiency and clean energy are the right thing to do for our future.

Some who have been fighting for clean energy were disappointed at the President’s version of “clean energy”. Like David Roberts at Grist:

...what [“clean energy”] means was, in order: nukes, offshore oil and gas drilling, biofuels, “clean coal,” and ... well, that’s it. That’s right, in listing what “clean energy” means the president did not mention renewable energy. That’s just stunning. It’s 2010 and renewable energy isn’t even an afterthought? Seriously?

Or the Get Energy Smart Now blog, which drew a sharp contrast between SOTU 2009 and SOTU 2010:

In 2009, President Obama made a strong and uncompromising call for investments in “clean, renewable energy” and made a direct statement about the type of climate legislation expected from Congress (”market-based cap on carbon pollution”). He provided a meaningful opening target: “we will double this nation’s supply of renewable energy in the next three years”.
In 2010, President Obama did not even mention the word “renewable”, failed to refer back to the strong statements about renewable energy in the 2009 SOTU and how we on track to achieving (and likely exceeding) them, and sounded like he could have been speaking to the Republican National Convention in the Luntz-ian like redefinition of a “clean energy economy”...

What was Obama thinking, calling for more nukes? He’s probably thinking of Senators John Kerry (D-MA), Joe Lieberman (LIE-CT) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) who are trying to put together a bi-partisan climate bill. Whether or not he won any hearts and minds on the other side of the aisle, he didn’t endear himself to his supporters.

As commenter “shiplord kirel” offered over at rightwing blog Little Green Footballs:

With the kind words for coal and nuclear, O has grabbed his last few far-left supporters by the scruff of their scruffy necks and tossed them right under the bus of state.

Obama also may have been pitching to those notorious “swing voters” that everyone has been so concerned with. Democracy Corps did a focus group of swing voters, and found that their approval of the President jumped from 44 percent pre-speech to 60 percent after.

They didn’t ask about green initiatives specifically, so we don’t know the group’s reaction on that front (although his “Tax the Banks” plan was wildly popular.)

But we do know one thing: Swing voters liked what they heard, but have doubts as to whether he can deliver.

Unlike most attributes that shifted during the speech, “promises things that sound good but won’t be able get them done” remained very high (78 percent pre-speech to 74 percent post-speech). The “shifters” in these post-speech focus groups are waiting for results, and they pointed specifically to passing health care reform and job creation initiatives as critical reforms that must be delivered. While they see the Republicans as obstructing every Obama initiative, they nonetheless expect Democrats to pass major legislation with their large majorities.

One final poll number: last week Republican Pollster and media guru Frank Luntz reportedon a national survey with some encouraging results:

• 57 percent agreed with the statement: It doesn’t matter if there is or isn’t climate change. It is still in America’s best interest to develop new sources of energy that are clean, reliable, efficient and safe.
• National security is the main reason that people support cap and trade. Across the demographic board, people liked the idea that clean energy will liberate us from this oil addiction.

You want bi-partisan? It sounds like there’s already a bi-partisan consensus in this country. We just have to wait for our politicians to tap into it.

(Originally appeared at TenthMil.com)

Putting a Price on Nature

There’s a beautiful meadow up by Bend, Oregon, at the heart of the Glaze Meadow restoration project. The TENTHMIL team was up there with a film crew last year, and I was asked, “Looking out over this meadow, what would you say to the people back in the city?”

And I said, “It’s really sad that the only way this land would have any ‘value’ would be if we put a strip mall on it.”

Nature isn’t free, but a lot of people do business as if it is – and this has been going on for thousands of years. It’s called “The Tragedy of the Commons”, and it warps our economic decisions in all kinds of ways.

Economists are finally coming around to that point of view, as reported this month in The Economist.

A number of the thinkers who have made it a hot topic in the past decade gathered at a meeting on biodiversity and ecosystem services held by the Royal Society, in London, on January 13th and 14th. They looked at the progress and prospects of their attempts to argue for the preservation of nature by better capturing the value of the things – such as pollination, air quality and carbon storage – that it seemingly does for free.

They take a look at the example of a mangrove swamp. Worthless land, right? Nobody would want to own a mangrove swamp. Recently, governments in southeast Asia have been subsidizing shrimp farming, in order to take advantage of that useless, wasted land.

Oops.

In 2007 an economic study of such shrimp farms in Thailand showed that the commercial profits per hectare were $9,632. If that were the only factor, conversion would seem an excellent idea.
However, proper accounting shows that for each hectare government subsidies formed $8,412 of this figure and there were costs, too: $1,000 for pollution and $12,392 for losses to ecosystem services. These comprised damage to the supply of foods and medicines that people had taken from the forest, the loss of habitats for fish, and less buffering against storms. And because a given shrimp farm only stays productive for three or four years, there was the additional cost of restoring them afterwards: if you do so with mangroves themselves, add another $9,318 per hectare. The overall lesson is that what looks beneficial only does so because the profits are retained by the private sector, while the problems are spread out across society at large, appearing on no specific balance sheet.

Swamps aren’t the only places this is starting to get noticed. From forests that don’t look like they provide services until they’re cut down and water quality goes to hell downstream, to swamps that prevent expensive flooding when storms hit, there’s a new school of economics that evaluates the true costs of environmental problems and helps governments make more rational, cost-effective decisions.

One such group is the Natural Capital Project, based at California’s Stanford University, whose InVEST computer program is helping governments in Tanzania and Columbia analyze real costs.

The Economist notes that not everyone agrees with this newfound crossing of balance sheets with bio-inventories.

Some think the notion is an affront to those who place cultural, spiritual or aesthetic value on biodiversity for its own sake. It would be a mistake to look at things this way. In valuing a particular service – such as the cost of erosion to Greek hillsides – which can be quantified with a reasonable degree of certainty, you do not exhaust the reasons for preserving the groves where the dryads play.

“...We can never do nothing. That which we have done for thousands of years is also action. It also produces evils.”
- Garrett Hardin, “The Tragedy of the Commons”

(Originally appeared at TenthMil.com)