Too many months ago now, I was emailed the manuscript of a book called Cooling It: No Hair Shirt Solutions to Global Warming by Gar Lipow, an occasional commenter at my own blog. I promised Gar I would read it, and then it languished on my desktop for months, silently mocking me.
In any case, I recently finished it and with his permission I thought I'd share my impressions.
For honesty's sake I should say that I may be the worst possible person to review this book. I require almost no convincing of the book's main arguments -- that the means for saving the planet from climate change are well within our grasp, without massive reductions in our standard of living or pie-in-the-sky technological improvements.
That said, the book is an extremely detailed and thorough argument of just that. If you like tables of wonky data (and who doesn't?) this is a great book for you. But even (maybe especially) the non-technical environmentalist could gain from reading it.
The central argument is that we, as an industrial society, naturally replace infrastructure as it ages. So the question is not a fictional "business as usual" versus having to rebuild everything from the ground up. Business as usual is rebuilding and replacing our infrastructure as it ages and becomes obsolete.
Lipow argues that the vast majority of our infrastructure needs to be replaced within 30 years, whether we like it or not. The question is how will it be replaced. Will we use the standard, inefficient, non-renewable junk, or will we act as if our species has a survival instinct?
Like one of my faves, Natural Capitalism, Cooling It has plenty of examples of technologies that can help us reduce our carbon emissions, and Lipow ably surveys various sectors of the American economy to demonstrate where the savings in energy and CO2 emissions can come from. In particular, I enjoyed the sections on agriculture and transportation -- did anyone else know about this Cybertran thing? Why was I out of the loop?
Unlike Natural Capitalism, however, Cooling It stays almost entirely in the realm of the real -- no carbon-fiber, fuel-cell cars here.
Lipow's intention, and I believe he succeeded, was to show even with the most conservative possible assumptions (that is, the status quo), we have the means to be both prosperous and sustainable. It doesn't come for free -- nothing does -- but it is eminently achievable.
This, I think, is the natural counterpart to Al Gore's message that the climate crisis is a moral calling before anything else: having been given a moral command to save the planet, our objective now is to do so as quickly as possible. Lipow's book made me more hopeful than I've been in a long time that we might actually be able to make it happen.
Now if someone would just publish it, the rest of you could read it too.
Comments
View as Flat
Bart Anderson Posted 6:15 am
25 Oct 2006
Other reasons to publish on the Web:Can reach a much wider audience - far beyond the few thousand people that typically buy books of this nature. Can reach an international audience. Avoids the lengthy book publishing process. Avoids the frustration of trying to market your book.Instead, you use your energy communicating, networking and communicating. Most books do not bring in much money anyway.
On the other hand, books bring a measure of respectability and recognition which is hard to achieve through the web alone.
Many writers are pursuing both paths. In any case, no one in the age of the Internet should let book publishers keep them from getting their ideas out.
Bart
Energy Bulletin
Permalink
KathyF Posted 6:19 am
25 Oct 2006
Permalink
Robert Ellison Posted 12:05 pm
25 Oct 2006
http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/Arctic.htm
The temperatures trends in the Arctic reflect the warming and cooling periods seen in the global surface temperature record. These periods mirror shifting phases of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), a natural climate phenomenon that has been traced back in trees and coral for more than 400 years. The divergent climate states were first discerned in arctic fisheries in 1996 but have since been discovered in changing abundances of anchovies and sardines in Monterey Bay (having given rise to John Steinbeck's novel Cannery Row) and in Australian multi-decadal rainfall trends (long periods of persistent droughts or long periods of persistent floods).
(http://jisao.washington.edu/pdo/
The divergent states are the warm and cool phases of the PDO. A cool phase brings persistent La Nina conditions over a few decades (more summer rainfall in Australia) and reduced global temperatures (fewer El Ninos). The alternating phases last for 20 to 30 years. The last warm phase of the PDO (1975 to 1998) produced between 1976 and 1977 a 0.50C rise in the temperature of the lower atmosphere.
(http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2004/08/09/no... - see Figure 2 especially).
Australia has good flood records going back more than 100 years. It has been known for some time that Australia experiences decades long periods of extended drought and, alternatively, decades long periods of flooding. These periods coincide with the temperature record of the last century. The period of rising temperature to the mid 1940's saw drought, the period to 1975 was a wet period and then dry again to - well - now.
Recent flood analysis suggests that the phenomenon is a result of long term modulation of both the frequency and intensity La Nina and El Nino events in the El Nino Southern Oscillation. There is a direct relationship between increasing frequency and intensity of El Nino and higher global temperatures.
The indication from increasing negativity of the PDO index since 1998 is that the PDO has shifted phase - this is supported by other observations. The lack of an increase in global temperature since 1998 suggests that the effect of a `cool phase' of the PDO is being felt. The effect will last for decades and will moderate global warming - although I am still waiting for the rain to fall.
This is not to suggest that carbon dioxide does not impose a rising temperature trend on a background of naturally variable climate. Simply, that GHG alone are insufficient to account for climate variation over the last century.
The powerful climate signal of the PDO is not included in the climate models because, quite simply, there is no agreed explanation for the observed phenomenon. Although this seems a trifle theoretical when confronted with real world observations - it was assumed that the background variations were chaotic and unpredictable when in fact they are cyclical and predictable.
There is abundant peer reviewed science on all of this content.
I do not endorse continuing to increase GHG concentrations. There are serious problems with that course even with a moderation of global warming. The moderation will, at best, buy some more time.
hi everybody
Permalink
Bart Anderson Posted 3:25 pm
25 Oct 2006
Permalink
Jones Posted 8:52 pm
25 Oct 2006
Permalink
Jones Posted 9:14 pm
25 Oct 2006
But anyway...while not knowing much about this book, I do sometimes worry about the issue being flooded by disorganized, cobbled-together compendiums of fact and lists of miraculous new technology. The thing that makes Amory Lovins stand out is that he seems to have a good grasp of nature, economics (which would be our ecosystem, btw), and has a very good grasp of design. He understands deeply that it's not the technology that's important, but how it dovetails with human culture.
On the other hand, I recognise that it's still early days in the "adaptation" debate and that we're still very much in the brainstorming phase. We could still use plenty of opinions to chew on, even if they do wind up getting spat out.
I will say, to anybody interested in solving the world's problems: please read liberally from Amory Lovins (RMI) and Bill McDonough. For their apporach, if not their actual solutions.
Permalink
willa Posted 12:03 am
26 Oct 2006
Hair shirts have nothing to do with hippies, dirty or otherwise.
For centuries, extremely pious and/or guilt-ridden Christians (although possibly others too, not sure) have worn these to cause themselves pain as a punishment for their (perceived) sins. Usually it's figurative, as in this case; the point is that we should not feel guilty or punish ourselves, but rather should from this day forward stop doing the dumb thigs that got us into this in the first place. A philosophy, I believe, that lends itself to widespread success as soon as we get our heads out of the various undesirable places where they currently are, which will be approximately when Hell freezes over if history is any guide. :)
Permalink
Newsquoter Posted 1:10 am
26 Oct 2006
http://www.newsquoter.com/ViewQuote.aspx?QuoteId=353
Permalink
JMG Posted 1:29 am
26 Oct 2006
===============
Economics for Humans
Julie A. Nelson
Cloth, $16.00
The University of Chicago Press
NEW September 2006
Order from University of Chicago Press
Is it asking too much to demand that businesses be socially and environmentally responsible? When child care and elder care are commercially supplied, is caring turned into just another commodity? Many, believing that economies are cold and heartless systems that operate outside human control, would answer yes. But in this impassioned and perceptive work, Julie A. Nelson debunks theories that teach us that our economic lives are somehow separate from our moral values and our human relationships.
The impediment to envisioning a more considerate economic world, Nelson demonstrates, is a particular assumption that is shared by both neoliberals and the Left. Despite their seemingly insurmountable differences, they both make use of the metaphor, first proposed by Adam Smith, of "the economy as machine." This pervasive idea, she argues, has blinded us to the qualities that make us work and care for one another--qualities that also make businesses thrive and markets grow. We can wed our interest in money with our justifiable concerns about ethics and social well-being. And we can do so if we recognize that an economy is not a machine, but a living, beating heart that--when healthy--circulates blood to all parts of the social body while also serving as the seat of compassion and care.
Nothing less than a manifesto, Economics for Humans will both invigorate and inspire readers to rethink the way they view the economy, its possibilities, and their place within it.
"A stunning rebuke of conventional assumptions that describe our economic system as a robot-like machine. In this deeply intelligent and personally engaging book, Julie Nelson emphasizes the tremendous influence of ethics and emotions on economic outcomes. She challenges both the Left and the Right to think more creatively about the relationship between love and money. Everyone who studies care--or cares about social science--should read this book."
-- Nancy Folbre, author of The Invisible Heart: Economics and Family Values
"Economics, as it is often taught today, portrays us as homo economicus--someone who doesn't vote in presidential elections, doesn't return lost wallets, and doesn't leave tips when dining out of town. Julie Nelson reminds us that most people aren't really like that. She helps point the way to a richer, more descriptive way of thinking about economic life."
-- Robert H. Frank, author of Luxury Fever: Money and Happiness in an Era of Excess
"Julie Nelson cares. She cares enough about her home discipline, economics, to demand that it jettison the crippling assumption that the economy is a clockwork machine. She cares enough about people to insist that we recognize the full range of our economically valuable activities, from the unpaid provision of personal care to the ethical management of corporations. In this sparkling, passionate, personal book Nelson shows how to humanize economics without abandoning its commitment to rigorous description and explanation."
-- Viviana A. Zelizer, author of The Purchase of Intimacy
ISBN: 0-226-57202-1
Julie A. Nelson is an economist and senior research associate at the Global Development and Environmental Institute at Tufts University.
Permalink
Whiskerfish Posted 3:49 am
26 Oct 2006
Anyone who quotes junkscience.com to support an argument against the reality of climate change can be safely dismissed out of hand as a fraud or a fool. The site is riddled with errors.
Cheers
Whiskerfish
Permalink
niclas Posted 6:39 am
26 Oct 2006
http://www.lulu.com/products/books/paperback.php
I'll buy one.
Permalink
Gar Lipow Posted 12:02 pm
26 Oct 2006
>I will say, to anybody interested in solving the world's problems: please read liberally from Amory Lovins (RMI) and Bill McDonough. For their apporach, if not their actual solutions.
I own a first edition of Natural Capitalism, and have kept up with the Rocky Mountain Institutes work. However I think the RMI tends to mix what we know how to inexpensively, with what can do now at great cost but will some day be able to do inexpensively, with what we don't know how to do now. I don't think Lovins is essentially wrong, though I have strong reservations about hydrogen . I think a stronger argument can be made for his technical case than he makes. Cooling it is essentially a corrective to Natural Capitalism. It shows that RMI's logic works even if we make much less optimistic assumptions about what is possible than theirs. It simply adds up products on the market now, and technology that has been demonstrated, that can take us down the soft energy path without needing cheap solar cells or fuels cells (even though I think cheap solar cells at least are inevitable). It is a corrective only in the sense that it demonstrate that far more conservative assumptions than Amory makes can lead to the same conclusion.
(I also think the Amory and the RMI are way too optimistic about markets and need to respect the need for public works and regulation a great deal more.)
>Have you read Monbiot's book Heat? It paints a rather different picture. Also, what does the ms say about jet travel? Monbiot thinks it will be a thing of the past in our future.
Very eager to read it. I have been following his journalism for some time and have been anticipating the book. In the early stages he mentioned some small wind technology that I knew was quackery, and I wrote him about it. I suspect his own good sense, rather than my letter led him to drop it.
I suspect that Monbiot underestimates the amount of efficiency improvements possible, but will withhold judgement until I read the book. I knew from various things he said that the book was going to be less optimistic than mine - though I've heard hints that the differences are not as great as they seem.
In terms of jet airplanes, I agree with Monbiot. Because of the particular way they contribute to global warming, we will have to reduce their use. There is no technological substitute that will let us continue to fly as much and as fast. We won't have to give them up all together, but we will have to reduce their use a great deal. Basically they produce stratospheric water vapor - which unlike water vapor produced in troposphere is a greenhouse forcing and not a feedback. Running planes on biofuels would do nothing to solve this. Hydrogen would make the problem worse. Our current battery technology, and any electricity storage means we are likely to achieve in the future can't drive large passenger jet planes for a number of reason.
However, there are technological substitutes for flying in most cases. A great many air journeys are over land. If you are traveling 500 miles or fewer there is a light rail system that can get you to your destination faster than a small plane. For longer journeys, bullet trains like the ones curently used in Japan will work. Beyond that really long journeys will either take longer or someone will have to make Maglevs work. (Maglev may or may not be more energy efficient than planes. But they are much less greenhouse gas intensive. ) Obviously none of these are useful for large scale journey's over water. The Chunnel is one thing; but taking a train from Washington D.C. to Paris is not part of the forseeable future.
Where you absolutely need to fly jet planes there is one method that can cut their greenhouse effect a great deal. Water emissions tend to stay in stratosphere much more if generated at night than in the day, much more in winter than in summer. So if you minimize night and winter flying, you reduce the global warming effect to a much greater extent than if you reduced flying across the board. This lets us continue to fly at least one third as much as we do now, perhaps even 50%. But that is in absolute terms, which means per capita flying will have to be reduced a whole lot as population increases. Also if you flying more planes fewer hours, you raise capital costs per passenger mile a great deal. (You can't amortize individual planes over as many passenger miles.) That would raise fares even more - by a lot.
So flying is going to have to be reserved for when we really need it, less frequent, more expensive. For business, the trend towards telecommunication substituting for long distance in-person contact will have to continue and accelerate. For leisure, we will have to fly less and move by train and ship more.
Permalink
TokyoTom Posted 4:24 pm
26 Oct 2006
Your point here is unobjectionable, I think: "This is not to suggest that carbon dioxide does not impose a rising temperature trend on a background of naturally variable climate. Simply, that GHG alone are insufficient to account for climate variation over the last century."
But if you agree that we should NOT "continu[e] to increase GHG concentrations", what's the point of your long post on this thread, which is about our capability to change course?
Not sure I follow what point you're trying to make.
Permalink
caniscandida Posted 6:05 pm
26 Oct 2006
It does indeed seem that our trains, and the whole railroad infrastructure, are under-maintained and under-utilized. Surely, all our "container"-bearing interstate-traveling trucks are a big problem, standing in need of correction sooner or later. Most of this interstate freight traffic ought to be borne by trains. True, there is then an efficiency problem involved in the added task of transferring "containers" or their contents at the railroad stations of cities and towns to trucks for local distribution. But we may doubt that that is a major obstacle, and that a solution cannot be found.
I had not thought much about jet airplane travel. But what you say makes a great deal of sense. If, as I suspect, a major portion of that travel is business-related, then indeed, as new technologies for real-time communications become established and main-stream everywhere, the need for such travel is obviated.
Presumably there will always be a need for an agent/engineer/salesman from Producer A, maker of Widget X, to travel in person, with a Widget X in his/her luggage, to meet the agent/engineer/buyer at Potential Buyer B, in order to explain what Widget X does, and how it works, and why it is a good fit for the Gadgetry Y System that Potential Buyer B currently uses. Fine. But so then, why can't the agent/engineer/salesman from Producer A, carrying a Widget X in his/her luggage, travel out to Potential Buyer B by train? What's the rush?
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
Permalink
Gar Lipow Posted 4:06 am
27 Oct 2006
Travel for business and leisure are both significant. Percentages vary fairly widely from nation to nation, and also with the length of the trip. The truth is we are going to have to reduce both.
Permalink
willa Posted 5:26 am
27 Oct 2006
The interstate trucking industry is a major catastrophe waiting to happen. It has expanded greatly in the last couple of decades, but pay has remained fairly static and both company policies and the laws governing the situation are exploitative of the drivers, so what you have is a bunch of relatively inexperienced drivers (because of the demand for ever more drivers, and because retention rates have dropped as drivers realize it's not as good a job as it once was) being pushed way too far (because they can't make any money at all unless they push or break the limit of how far they can legally drive in a given time period), many of them on drugs to combat both the fatigue and the boredom of their lives, and when accidents happen the drivers usually get left holding the bag, as if it's their fault that they're overtired and that people driving cars don't know how to pass them safely. This state of affairs seems likely to come to some sort of crisis at some point, and while I wish that weren't the case for the drivers' sake, I think it might help get us headed back towards rail freight.
Local truck delivery from rail terminals is no problem; the trucks are already on the road, and in fact the existing fleet could be greatly reduced if fewer vehicle-miles overall were required. Of course, that will just compound the already-mind-boggling problem of what to do with a few million more dead Freightliners, since the Freightliner is the Hyundai of the big-rig world, and no one will buy them, so when the leases run out the company parks them and walks away...
As for flying...yes, I think we have to get used to things taking longer again.
I think electric cars and more widespread solar electricity and a lot of other things are crying out for a major breakthrough in ways electricity can be stored in large, portable quantities. It's amazing to me that, with all the other things we've invented in the last few decades, basically zero progress has been made on this.
Permalink
pdx lurker Posted 7:23 am
27 Oct 2006
PRT is even more personal (cars fit i think 3 to 5 people), but the infrastructure is similar.
Permalink
Gar Lipow Posted 8:49 am
27 Oct 2006
The advantages of Cybertran:
1) Cost - a 20 passenger car does not cost seven times as much to build as a tree passenger car. So you get a much lower cost per seat.
2)Most PRT systems use completely novel car designs, and novel roads that are hybrid between a conventional highway and a rail track. Whereas cybertran uses cars that really are a varietion on conventional rail. You could build a cyber tran car in a factory that makes convention rail, though probably wouldn't in small systems due to lack of volume. Cybertran rail is not that different from conventional light rail - ligher guage, not crossties, rounded rails, but still can be laid out buy anyone experienced in laying conventional tracks. In short, you are not so bleedin edge. You can tap the entire experience of the existing rail industry. Whereas PRT are not really trains, but not really cars either.
I think you will find cybetran as comfortable as PRT, almost as fast, and much lesss expensive, and in the early stages much more reliable. (That last will change if as PRT systems are built industry experience acquired.
Check out http://www.cybertran.com
Someone went way too heavy with the graphical navigation, but if you can get past that it has good information. (You actually have to click on a graphic icon to get content. It does not default to a tab. And the little doohickies that look like fancy bookends for the numbers are actually navigation arrows.)
Permalink
Gar Lipow Posted 8:52 am
27 Oct 2006
In terms of the electric car, I am now a blogger on Gristmill. I have a couple of minor posts in queue, but I'm going to start blogging on transportation issues next week.
Permalink