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The French rail system (SNCF) has added a calculator for travel carbon emissions, offering up the ability to compare prices and carbon loads for travel by rail, air, or personal vehicle. L’Ecocomparateur enables one to know how long the trip will take and the consequences: for the pocket and the climate for that trip.  Will you be willing to take a few hours longer in travel to save $50?  How about if that will also cut your travel emissions load by 200 lobs or more?

The trip Toulouse-Paris (26/27 August), for example comes up with these figures:

• Train: 92.8 to 123.7 Euros; 5 hours, 13 minutes; 9 kg CO2
• Plane: 222.20 Euros; 1 hour, 30 minutes; 180 kg CO2
• Car: 205.24 Euros; 6 hours, 55 minutes; 272 kg CO2

Time priority, this says take the plane. Money and carbon load: enjoy your train ride.

Now, the behind the scenes rule sets for the analysis are worth exploring.  (See here for the methodology for calculating emissions.)  The system actually has a bias against trains (and cars) because there is no calculating for the difficulties and hassles for traveling by plane. By experience, one can arrive at the Gare (train station) in Toulouse 2 minutes before the train and get on board (almost missed that one). The days of running through the airport like OJ Simpson, without a huge security line, are long gone. Add another hour to the flight simply for the security issues. In addition, the train leaves/arrives in center city and the car at the doorstep, the plane far out of town, requiring additional transport, additional time and money to get where you’re going.  Thus, oddly, the SNCF has given some advantage to the planes.

And, when it comes to auto transport, it seems unlikely that they are fully valuing the full cost of the car for transport. Is this just gasoline and tolls, or is there also some calculation of insurance, maintenance, and capital cost (purchase price) costs?

On the other hand, perhaps there is some favoritism to the rail (and car) calculation as there is a serious analytical challenge of seeking to do the full life-cycle and full system implications of trains, aircraft, buses, cars, etc for transport. Here is a recent look at this question: Environmental assessment of passenger transportation should include infrastructure and supply chains. To give an idea of the issue: How much concrete is going into the rail line compared to, in essence, the aircraft leaping over much of that huge infrastructure? Seems unlike that SNCF has taken this into account.

In any event, an interesting calculator that puts a price, carbon, and time of travel calculation in very easy to read form in front of (potential) travelers.

Here is a guest post from the passionate citisven advocating that we tie our laces and walk the walk.

Yup, you read that right. Time to strap on your preferred footwear, turn off the intertubes, and give those rusty bones a fair shake. ‘Cause you know what they say on gravity-rich planet Earth: These boots are made for walking, but your sneakers, loafers, or bare feet will do.

To whet the pedestrian appetite and spur the mood for the boot, I’ve put together this multimedia stream* of 100% organic, greenroots walking gospel that should get even the most avid couch, desk, office and car potatoes out of their preferred mode of inertia:

(rate this video)

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This is a guest post from the very thoughtful ApSmith who merits paying attention not just on this … but FIT is something that should be on the agenda to help move us forward toward more rapid deployment of clean energy options.

The NY Times’ Green Inc blog highlighted several plans to introduce feed-in tariffs in various locations around the US. One of the comments led to an interesting article with a slightly lengthier argument for this policy approach, from the Renewable Energy Policy Project.

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As part of a 20-day “how to” workshop on solar power, Kenyan students installed solar panels the Senator Barack Obama School in Kogel, Kenay, and on Mama Sarah’s home. Mama Sarah as in the President’s grandmother. As she put it,

“I am very pleased that my home has been improved thanks to solar energy and I’ll make sure my grandson hears about it. Solar power is clean, reliable and affordable, unlike paraffin that is widely used in the area. Also, we now have qualified youth in the village who can help with the upkeep of the systems.”

This Solar Generation workshop is targeting how solar can help address energy poverty, poverty, and climate change in a win-win-win strategy, strengthening the economy (both at individual and macro levels), protecting the environment, and providing a reliable and clean energy supply. The 25 students are learning about how solar photovoltaiic panels produce electricity, how to install and maintan them, and some business opportunities via solar lamps.

“The workshop and practical installation of solar power are a critical opportunity for us to develop our own skills in renewable energy installation. Not only do we get to act against the devastating effects of climate change in Kenya, but also develop a source of revenue.” Robert Kheyi, project coordinator for the Kibera Community Youth Programme

Shocklingly unreported by most of the nation’s media, easily 100 people collapsed outside Salt Lake City’s Gallivan Center.  Exact numbers are hard to come by,  but this tragic moment sends a signal of a much larger catastrophe that will kill millions and, without action, billions in the years to come.  The bodies on the ground outside Gallivan Center should serve as a wake-up call to all of us.

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For awhile, I’ve noted We Add + Up.  From their “about” page:

WE ADD UP is a global campaign using organic cotton t-shirts that literally “counts you in” to help solve the climate crisis. Every shirt is printed by hand with a unique number. YOUR number is your position in our sequential global count of people who are taking steps to do their part. As the count grows, we demonstrate to the world that “WE ADD UP.” On the back of each shirt is a word or phrase that describes an action almost anyone can take to reduce their carbon footprint – the contribution their lifestyle makes to greenhouse gases – such as, Unplug, Lights Off, Carpool, Hybrid, Bike, Buy Local, and 27 others. You choose which action you are committed to doing and get counted in. No one can do everything. Everyone can do something. And, WE ADD UP.

To be honest, I’ve discomfited by the effort.  My reaction has been along the lines of:

In the name of saving the planet, you too can get yet another t-shirt. Yeah, yet another way to buy our way to a better planet.

Okay, that just didn’t sit well with me. Just how many t-shirts do you have?  Just how many do we need.

Recently, I ended up face-to-face with the Jill Palermo from We Add Up and was pretty direct about those concerns.

This lead to an interesting conversation, with an interesting twist. Jill argued that the shirt opens the door for conversations in a way that many other shirts don’t. As she put in an email after our conversation,

unlike wearing a “Stop Global Warming” t-shirt (where no one wants to talk to you), a We Add Up t-shirt invites questions.  I get emails all the time from people saying how they were stopped in the middle of the street, in the grocery store line, etc, with “What does that number mean?”   Education is the way to create lasting change and We Add Up is literally a street marketing and education tool for the climate.

Okay, I’m not sure that I need yet another t-shirt but this is an interesting argument. I’m not sure that wearing a 1 Sky shirt (as I was when we chatted) is such a turn off. And, unlike the We Add Up shirts, that 1 Sky (or 350.org or Greenpeace or …) shirt is making a direct political comment, like having a bumper sticker on the car.  But the idea that those t-shirts could create openings (at the grocery store or in the park) for conversations that might not otherwise have occurred makes some sense.

We Add Up does make sense in other ways, as well. If you have a child in America’s schools, you know that you are inundated with fundraising efforts, for wrapping paper and lots of other rather ‘disposable’ and climate-unfriendly products.   We Add Up fundraising path offers a range of potential products (reusable bags, steel bottles, …) that can be used in a school fundraising effort (which has the benefit of providing a cash stream for the PTA and a bit of an educational opportunity).

So, at the end of the day, I’m uncertain that many of us need yet another t-shirt, but if given the choice between wrapping paper sales and a steel bottle purchase, the choice becomes pretty clear. And, that t-shirt just might lead to some interesting conversations …

There is a fundamental framing and analysis challenge that pervades much of the Washington (and national) discussion of moving forward toward better policy. This is true in health care, transportation, prison reform, decriminalization of marijuana (and industrial hemp), clean energy, global warming, and very many other important policy arenas.

At Netroots Nation, on a panel discussing environmental policy, I opened a short statement with a question:

Do compact flourescent light bulbs cost more than incandescents?

Without exception, those who answered the question said (or nodded their head) yes.

My response: you are utterly wrong.

While CFLs cost more to buy (perhaps $2-3 bulb vs $0.25-$0.50 for an incandescent), they cost far less to own due to their 73% lower electricity use and their 5-10 times longer expected life. Dependent on usage, payback time for that extra CFL purchase price can be measured in weeks.

We tend to look at the “cost to buy” rather than the “cost to own” a product in our own lives.

Sadly, this limited thinking often extends into the larger societal discussion.

When it comes to health care reform, there is no valuing of the likely improved productivity (due to lower sick leave, less time spent on health care administrative issues) and likely entreprenourial gains (as people feel more secure in taking the risk to start a business knowing that they have health care) of moving toward a more sensible health care system. And, there is typically no valuing of avoided costs (what change might help prevent from happening). Thus, a CBO report speaking to the “cost” of health care reform has zero accounting of huge potential benefits nor does it adequately place “cost” to the Federal budget against “gain” through reduced costs throughout society.

When it comes to climate change and energy, nearly without exception, the analyses and reports are stovepiped and do a poor job of valuing the costs of inaction. Thus, the CBO and EPA reporting on the “costs” of the American Clean Energy & Security (ACES) Act did not accounting for improved health due to reduced fossil fuel pollution, improved productivity and school performance (due, again, to improve health conditions and better work environments with more energy efficiency), and did not account for the costs of unconstrained climate change.

Even though these studies were so, in fact, pessimistic, too many people (politicians, organizations, others) trumpeted that ‘acting on climate change will only cost a postage stamp a day’ or other such nonsense. This “cost” places the discussion in the framing of opponents of action, who have been purveying falsehoods with exorbitant cost figures coming from so-called “reports”. Stating that ‘it will only cost’ creates the space for a debate over “how much will it cost”. In fact, if one doesn’t stove-pipe and considers a fuller range of the costs and benefits, we are not talking about a “postage stamp a day” in costs, but whether the benefits for the average American are the equivalent of a postage stamp or 100 postage stamps every day, day-in and day-out.

By falling into the trap of a stove-piped analysis structure, those advocating for progressive policies undermine their ability to build and maintain support for those policies.

Thus, it is important to remember: CFLs cost less!

As we consider the challenges of climate change and the paths to reaching an international accord that will lead to real efforts to turn the tides on global warming’s rising seas, we need to wonder whether all nations will be represented in Denmark this December.

Today’s question: Will the Colbert Nation be duly represented in Copenhagen and fight for a number: 350?

This is a repost, with minor editing, of something published several years ago.  This is adapted to look at the Obama Administration and its efforts in each of the five arenas. Let me know what you think.

The Republic is at a critical crossroads – a point where Americans must understand and take action to ensure a future for ourselves, our children, and the unborn Americans of tomorrow.

For eight years, the nation was driven down a path of fiscal failure, rotting of industrial strength, immoral and unethical governance, selling of our common heritage and future to a cabal of highest bidders, destruction of the environment, isolation of Americans in the international environment, and decaying of American security. In Nov 08, Americans faced a choice as to whether there is a tomorrow – and acted accordingly.

I believe that there will be a tomorrow.

I believe in acting and planning as if tomorrow exists.

Recognition of this demands implementation of new policy to unite America and Americans to strengthen this great nation.

The following five arenas provide a core basis for setting the stage for a healthier, more ethical and moral, richer, well governed, more secure America.  In other words, a stronger America.

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