The negative health and environmental impacts of idling have been known for over a decade. Yet, all over the city of Calgary we are leaving our cars running while not in use for an average of 5-10 minutes per car per day. Idling is unnecessary. It wastes fuel, produces more harmful emissions than normal driving, damages engines, and contributes to climate change
A good example of how idling is counter-productive and dangerous comes from diesel fumes from school buses — creating direct health risks for school-age children. Sensible school districts have anti-idling policies for their buses — which are too rarely seriously enforced. Eliminating (nearly) that threat is one reason that plug-in hybrid electric school buses (PHESBs) are a smart step forward.
Longer growing seasons enables greater pollen and other allergen production over more extended time frames.
“In one study, a 30 day earlier arrival of spring resulted in a 54.8 percent in crease in ragweed pollen production.” [Note: the best measurements are that spring has advanced by 10-14 days over the past 20 years in the northern hemisphere.]
Disrupted weather patterns and growing conditions favor weed species with greater pollen and allergen production.
Warmer temperatures fosters more intense pollen and other allergen production.
“One study found that …t he allergenic protein in ragweed increased by 70 percent when co2 levels were increased from current levels of about 385 ppm to 600 ppm, the levels expected by mid-century if emissions are not reduced.”
Increased Carbon Dioxide levels spur increased pollen and other allergen production.
“pollen production is projected to increase by 60-100 percent by around 2085 from this carbon dioxide increase alone”
Add these all together and we’re looking at not a few percentage points increase in ragweed allergens (the primary cause of allergy suffering in the United States) but several hundred percent increase.
And, the impact is not just to ragweed but also fungal production (about a four-fold increase with doubling CO2 levels), tree pollen, etc … Oh, of course, poison ivy gets worse in a warming world, with a more allergic form of urushiol being produced, with faster growth, over a longer portion of the year.
Considering this leads to some inescapable conclusions: time to stock on Benadryl and time to consider buying some drug company stocks, since could be of greater value in a higher CO2 levels, warming world …
The United States economy loses some $11.2 billion in medical costs and some $700 million in lost productivity per year to hay fever suffering each year. What will be the Global Warming multiplier?
The U.S. economy loses over 14 million school days, over 14 million work days, over $15 billion in medical costs and over $5 billion in lost earnings a year due to asthma. What will be the Global Warming multiplier?
These potential impacts of global warming could have a significant economic impact: allergies and asthma already cost the United States nearly $33 billion annually in direct health care costs and lost productivity.
The 40th Earth Day comes next week and, sigh, while globally there has been progress on many fronts (Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, reduce CFC emissions, etc), the reality is that the earth (our living space) is under ever greater stress, on ever more fronts, almost literally with every passing moment. Thus, the concept that we magically put aside one day, one moment to dedicate some time (some minutes) to doing something to reduce our heavy footprint on the Earth which will magically compensate for 364 days of unrelenting consumerism and unthinking damage seems absurd. Yet, Earth Day does provide a chance to bring visibility to the challenges we face and the opportunities we have to mitigate those challenges — and, even, gain from embracing solutions to challenges. President Barack Obama is challenging Americans “to take action to change our nation’s energy and environmental future.”
As we continue to tackle our environmental challenges, it’s clear that change won’t come from Washington alone. It will come from Americans across the country who take steps in their own homes and their own communities to make that change happen.
President Obama on the first Earth Day When it comes to Earth Day, well, I will be at work and, as per every work day, I will try to minimize electricity use, rescue that random aluminum can from a trash can, even as I might do ‘something special’. President Obama will also be at work, as he is every day of the year. And, his work will almost certainly include ‘something special’. As for me, I think that there are two ‘special’ actions that could help communicate.
First, work in the White House garden with his wife and children. The White House garden has helped to spark a growth in home gardening around the nation. Those gardens have huge potential values for individuals, communities, and beyond from reducing our oil dependencies (reduced food miles translating into lower oil use in transport) to reducing our bellies (via filling them with better food and the physical exercise in the garden) to …
Second, take the time to participate in a real home energy audit — trailing an auditor as they go through a home and sitting there, with a few selected reporters, as the auditor walks through the results with a home owner, highlighting how they could save $10s-$100s a year with a few dollars and few hours investment in caulking leaks and how they might save $1000s / year with additional insulation and more efficient systems. And, then, have available outside the home experts from outside the government prepared to talk to financial benefits from the government to help take these Energy Smart actions.
The President has the podium — these two actions, imo, would be more effective in communicating practical opportunities for individual action than standing behind a podium for a speech. A chance to share As is the wont with the Obama White House, the Earth Day webpage provides a chance to ‘share
‘.
What are you doing to help protect our environment and keep your community healthy? Whether you’re cleaning up a local park, weatherizing your home, or riding your bike to work, tell us what you’re doing to go green.
My shot at sharing:
While I try to embed Energy Smart practices throughout my life from the personal to professional, perhaps the most important are my efforts to communicate to assist others in understanding that ‘Energy Smart’ practices are just smart. For example, when I visit someone’s home for dinner, I have a bottle of wine in one hand and a compact flourescent bulb in the other. At one dinner party, that CFL led to a conversation with some 25 people where I had a chance to explain in detail how the CFLs might cost more to buy but that they cost far less to own. In my community, the extra cost in buying that CFL is paid back in a few months — and the savings go on for years. Over the following weeks/months, I heard back from five present about how that conversation sparked them to buy CFLs and how they saw a drop in their electricity bills. Notably, two of those five are ‘climate skeptics’ — they chose to do that Energy Smart action because they are saving money. Whether from the individual to the community to the nation to the community of nations and peoples, we face quite serious challenges — but those challenges create opportunities.
The New York Times Sunday magazine will feature a tour de force on climate economics by Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman. Entitled Building a Green Economy, a more appropriate title might be Climate Economics 101 and it should be required reading of every single Member of Congress and any journalist who writes on the issue of costs and benefits of action to mitigate climate change.
Sadly, I don’t have time to do Krugman’s excellent work full justice. He examines the costs and benefits of action on climate change, tackles issues (cogently) about the science, and highlights the critical importance of ‘insurance’ — valuing the potential, in decision-making, not just of ‘Climate Change’ but of catastrophic climate consequences — the low probability but incredible serious in impact risks.
This truly excellent piece, however, has several serious weaknesses. There is, of course, the base problem that the ‘costs’ of climate change are — even in his work — seriously underestimated. But, Krugman is an economist building on the work of other economists. In that community, he is not on the optimistic side in terms of climate change’s impacts even if he is likely too optimistic against what the real impacts will be.
More importantly, the Nobel-prize winning Krugman fails to call out the economic community and economic analysis for incredibly stove-piped analysis of climate change issues and the potential positive value of climate change mitigation.
The Cost of Action
Just as there is a rough consensus among climate modelers about the likely trajectory of temperatures if we do not act to cut the emissions of greenhouse gases, there is a rough consensus among economic modelers about the costs of action. That general opinion may be summed up as follows: Restricting emissions would slow economic growth — but not by much. The Congressional Budget Office, relying on a survey of models, has concluded that Waxman-Markey “would reduce the projected average annual rate of growth of gross domestic productbetween 2010 and 2050 by 0.03 to 0.09 percentage points.” That is, it would trim average annual growth to 2.31 percent, at worst, from 2.4 percent. Over all, the Budget Office concludes, strong climate-change policy would leave the American economy between 1.1 percent and 3.4 percent smaller in 2050 than it would be otherwise.
And what about the world economy? In general, modelers tend to find that climate-change policies would lower global output by a somewhat smaller percentage than the comparable figures for the United States.
Job creation and, therefore, lowered governmental services demand: not in the calculation. (Trading imported oil for jobs building up an electrified rail network, for example …)
Economic implications of climate change — and the avoided costs due to reduced pollution: not included.
Health care benefits (to federal budget and otherwise) due to reduced fossil fuel pollution: not included.
Increased productivity due to better health and better working conditions: not included.
The analysis didn’t even include the bill’s strong energy efficiency provisions, which are direct cost savers.
In citing studies from institutions like the Congressional Budget Office, Krugman doesn’t comment that they fail to account for issues like:
Intellectual quality: Fossil fuels are impacting average intelligence. Some medical research has concluded that the average IQ in the United States is roughly 1.5 points lower due to the mercury emitted by burning coal. What would the economic impact be of eliminating that drag on the American intellect?
Worker productivity: Study after study shows, quite conclusively, that greening workplaces improves productivity even while saving money in terms of reduced utility costs. The CBO economic analyses of climate change mitigation via the Waxman-Markety bill didn’t even account for the energy savings (but did count the costs to achieve those savings) but more importantly did not take any account of the worker productivity. The more pessimistic analyses have show a worker productivity improvement of five percent (others have show 10+ percent improvements). Well, that five percent is roughly five times the cost of the building energy and some 25 times the value of the saved energy and perhaps 50 times the value of the energy savings subtracting the costs to achieve them. What would the value be to the US economy of 2050 (and 2040 and 2060 and …) of an average worker productivity improvement of 5 percent? What about 10 percent?
Educational performance: Just as workers do better in cleaner, quieter, healthier, more comfortable workplaces, so do students. Greening the School House has many (many) benefits, including significant improvements in educational achievement. (Considering just one element: daylighting vs artificial light: A study in North Carolina revealed that children in schools with more natural day lighting scored 5 percent better on standardized tests than children in normal, comparable buildings.) What would the economic value be for an indefinite bump upwards in the educational achievements of American students (at all levels of education)?
Krugman falls into the trap of discussing the costs of dealing with climate change, discussing how little it will cost to mitigate climate change and insure against catastrophic climate chaos. In falling into this trap, the Nobel-prize winning economist fails to explain (fails to understand?) that full analysis shows that in discussing the economics of climate change mitigation, a robust cost/benefits analysis would show that the discussion would not end with a calculation of the “marginal costs of action vs the larger costs of inaction” but would result in a very serious statement as to the “huge risks and costs of inaction vs the very serious benefits of action“.
Krugman’s article is a tour de force even as he missed this critical important point.
Developing a lower total ownership cost (TOC) can often require paying a bit more money upfront. When it comes to energy efficiency and renewable energy (EE/RE), that upfront incremental cost is too frequently a barrier to achieving that more cost effective longer term solution. A bond program targeted specifically for EE/RE in government facilities can help local governments move past this problem. And, in tackling EE/RE investments in this way the local government can support achievement of many objectives from lowering the taxpayers’ financial burden to heat/cool/light buildings, to improving worker productivity and health, to reducing pollution, creating local jobs, and helping foster local capacity for and reducing barriers to EE/RE projects in the community (businesses, home owners, etc …).
Programs along these lines exist around the nation.
New Mexico’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Bonding Act, passed in 2005, established a revolving $20 million bond authority “to finance energy efficiency and renewable energy improvements in state government and school district buildings.” The Act has a provision for “the New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department [to] conduct an energy assessment of a building to determine specific efficiency measures which will result in energy and cost savings” on request from another state agency or school district.
And, there is Federal assistance for such programs with CREB and QECB programs: Qualified Energy Conservation Bonds (QECB) and Clean Renewable Energy Bonds (CREB). And, these programs are routinely oversubscribed.
What is sadly impressive, however, is that no special assistance should be necessary. While the financial assistance might help spark some municipalities to action (at 1 percent interest, that is pretty close to free money), to a certain extent the programs can help foster a belief that doing energy efficiency within public facilities simply doesn’t make sense for the local taxpayer unless someone is helping foot the bill. Since programs like CREB and QECB are typically oversubscribed, this suggests that there might be a pool of governments and public utilities waiting until they can ‘get the deal’ before funding energy efficiency programs. There might be institutions delaying action in belief that it doesn’t make sense without that special Federal assistance. This couldn’t be further from the truth.
Let us take a moment to step through the logic.
The basic truth: local governments pay significant amounts for utilities for their buildings (schools, court houses, jails, administrative offices, etc) and other infrastructure (someone pays for the night pollution of street lighting). Few communities have taken aggressive action to reduce these costs. Let us take a few examples:
Skylights: School gyms and hallways, for example, are prime candidates for skylights. Wal-Mart, for example, calculates less than two-year payback just on electricity savings (potentially as fast as 14 month payback) for its skylighting. That payback period doesn’t count in the increased sales and improved employee morale due to increased natural light. (And, when putting in those skylights, time to white roof those asphalt school roofs with a payback period that could be measured in months.)
Public pools: Both improved equipment (better pumps) and even solar hot water have fast payback times. In fact, solar hot water for public pools is the fastest paying back renewable energy program for a public facility: dependent on currently used heating fuel (and, obviously, price), supplementing a natural gas or electric public pool heating system with solar could have a payback of under 18 months.
And, obviously, the list can go on.
We are talking quite real possible for significant investments at several year payback periods. Most communities around the nation have real potential for substantially improving their energy efficiency and introducing (limited) renewable energy with a cumulative payback period of five years or better. At five years, that annual return on investment (ROI) is above 14 percent. A 20-year municipal bond, as of yesterday, yielded 4.07 percent. True cost to the community (administration, financing fees, etc) might actually be 5 percent. Okay, to achieve 14% savings, being able to get a subsidized loan of 1, 2, or 3% would be great. However, reducing the size of a program or delaying it (indefinitely) for a desire to have that 3% loan cost rather than paying 5% to be able to achieve a 14+% ROI seems — to be polite — to penny wise and pound foolish.
With a 4% loan, actual payback terms would require about 6% in payments each year for a 20-year payback. With 14% savings, that would mean the taxpayer would see an 8 percent savings each year, year-in, year-out. That savings actual creates the potential for creating an indefinite funding of continuing investment in energy efficiency and ever-increasing savings.
Wow. Sounds great. No? Well, the benefits extend well beyond the straight reduction in energy costs.
Job creation: At this time of economic travails, saving money while creating employment in the community would seem to be a no-brainer.
Economic activity with the workers spending money on lunches, paying their rents, etc …
Reduced tax burden for businesses and citizens due to lowered local government energy costs
Improve county employee productivity and student performance (“greening structures” leads to higher productivity such as, for example, due to daylighting vs artificial light)
Reduce pollution burden and Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions (Cool Counties)
Reputational value
Improve capacity for EE/RE projects due to increased
Awareness (businesses, citizens) of opportunities and payoffs
Improved government oversight (for example, increased inspector exposure to and knowledge of renewable energy projects)
Hmmm … lets get in line for a subsidized loan to save 1 or 2 percent on interest, delay activity, because those direct and indirect benefits clearly don’t make sense for action without action.
Sigh …
The case is quite clear that investing in energy efficiency makes sense (CENTS) for homeowners, businesses, government. The challenge is getting individuals, business owners, and governments to see clearly.
Hassett and Baker highlight that this is working around the world:
In Germany, for example, which has used work-sharing aggressively in this downturn, a typical company might reduce the hours of 50 workers by 20% rather than laying off 10 workers. The government would then provide a tax credit to make up for most of the lost pay, with the employer kicking in some as well. In a typical arrangement, a worker might see his weekly hours go down by 20%, and his salary go down by about 4%.
4% is a repeated figure.
This policy has kept the unemployment rate in Germany from rising even though the country has seen a sharper decline in GDP than the United States. The Netherlands, which also uses work-sharing, has managed to keep its unemployment rate near 4% even though its GDP also has fallen more steeply than in the United States.
Yes, it might make some serious economic sense for the US political system to look overseas for lessons on how to ameliorate the pain of economic downturns.
And, one of the (many) interesting elements is that the direct governmental costs might just balance out.
The cost to the government of going this route would be roughly the same as with the current unemployment insurance program. The big difference is that instead of unemployment benefits that effectively pay people for not working, we would be paying people for working shorter hours.
There are, however, many secondary and tertiary potential benefits that suggest this direct ‘wash’ of costs might mask some tremendous benefits. For example, could this lead to improved mental conditions of gainfully employed rather than depressed unemployed which could foster reduced domestic turbulence (including violence)? Would more job sharing fostering conditions for muting negative impacts of economic boom-and-bust cycles (as workers are already there to expand hours if a factory starts getting increased orders)?
A question to consider is whether the secondary/tertiary benefits might just extend into the energy / climate change arena.
With more time off, that four-day rather than five-day week or perhaps more (unpaid/partial paid) vacation time, along with slightly less income, many people might change their spending patterns. Would more people garden with benefits in terms of healthier food and some reduction in food mile related pollution? Would the increased leisure time actually lead to reduced pressure for extravagant, high-tempo vacations? In other words, could a partial shift in the work force’s nature and work pattern help lead toward more sustainable life-styles?
NOTE: Dean Baker is worth reading and thinking about for many reasons. Among other things, he is highly insightful as to systems-of-systems interactions, including the highlighting of how programs that make quite a bit of sense for other reasons could have tremendous benefits on the energy/climate front. For example, this piece outlines why environmentalists should be pressing for pay-as-you-go car insurance (other versions here and here):
Currently people treat auto insurance as a fixed cost of driving. They pay pretty much the same for their insurance regardless of whether they drive 1000 miles or 20,000 miles. The cost of insurance simply is not a factor in the decision on how much to drive. If the cost of insurance were instead assessed on a per mile basis, it would on average come to about 9 cents a mile. This would provide the same disincentive to drive as a $1.80 a gallon gas tax for someone with a car that gets 20 miles per gallon. …
switching to pay as drive policies would reduce driving by approximately 9 percent. This is a really big deal.
“Old Europe” currently consumes about half as much energy per person as does the United States. If Europe were to adopt U.S. practices and increase annual work hours to American levels, the paper shows, they could consume some 30 percent more energy than they do at present.
Few in the energy and environmental worlds link job practices with energy use and pollution patterns. The CEPR work suggests, strongly, that they should.
Sadly, the thirteen-day smorgasbord of the 2010 Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital came to an end this evening. It ended with a bang: the world premiere of Carbon Nation, a film by Peter Byck and a (clearly) talented team. This film had its genesis at the premiere of An Inconvenient Truth, with Byck and his colleagues committing themselves to do a film looking to solutions to the challenges that Global Warming represents.
Carbon Nation is a documentary film about climate change SOLUTIONS. Even if you doubt the severity of the impact of climate change or just don’t buy it at all, this is still a compelling and relevant film that illustrates how SOLUTIONS to climate change also address other social, economic and national security issues. We meet a host of entertaining and endearing characters along the way.
Entertaining … endearing … and exceptional.
Those same words can be used for the film itself. [Read more →]
March 25th, 2010 · Comments Off on “Positive” isn’t always good: Cilmate Change Feedback
This guest post comes from DCoronata covering a quite important set of issues on feedback systems, starting off with some basic education and ending with basic (and critical) questions.
There are so many tangible and complicated parameters to our planet’s climate that after centuries of examination and decades of high-level accurate predictions about what the future may bring. This is a topic so vast, so magnificent in its scope and so vital to the future of all ecological niches on Earth that I can’t possibly do it justice, and can only examine the most important potential details.
Climate is the interplay of dozens of inputs and outputs, of energy radiated and transmitted through several different strata. But what makes it so damned hard to figure out, is when a change in one value leads to unexpected changes in another. This isn’t comprehensive, this isn’t even close to being a full analysis and I won’t pretend it is. But it is a start into the wonderful world of feedback and control systems.
