Comments Eric de Place has made

Sure it does

vakibs,

I think you're being a little unfair. Huntsman said it would help reach the 20% goal. And I think it pretty clearly does help.

Obviously, Utah will need more tools in it's energy efficiency toolbox, but there are some really good indications so far. For one thing, Utah's joined the Western Climate Initiatve -- which means at least an executive-level commitment to carbon cap & trade. On Taking a three-day weekend for the planet posted 1 year, 4 months ago 2 Responses

you're right, odograph

Obviously, the BEST thing would be to swap out the Durango for a Prius. No argument from me!

I just think it's interesting that the low-end improvements make a bigger difference than the upper-end fixes. On When is a Tundra a better buy than a Prius? posted 1 year, 11 months ago 47 Responses

Contra me

"...both countries are obliged by human decency, nay, by simple survival instinct..."

Sure, Dave. But what I was objecting to was a type of discourse (Al's in this case) that has the effect of leading people to weight China and the U.S. about equally. As you note, they're not even close in terms of moral responsibility, nor practical ability to address the problem.

I'll step out a bit further. I'm actually not sure that "human decency" requires China to adopt drastic emissions cuts in the near term. Heck, there are still plenty of Chinese who don't have sufficient material goods to keep body and soul together. To borrow an analogy from a commentor to my previous post, the US is a bit like a glutton gobbling up all the available food. Then when the people arive and start consuming even one-third as much food as the glutton (per capita), it's not right for the glutton to cry: 'hey, no fair, we're all going to run out of food. Human decency requires you to stop eating.'"

The problem, as I see it anyway, is a terrible tangle of split incentives, historical injustice, and an ongoing tragedy of the commons. From a moral perspective, I just don't think there's now a clear or easy way to fix our problems -- though fix them we must. So, yes, the Chinese should adopt emissions cuts -- for the sake of all of us -- but it hardly seems fair. On China and the U.S. are both obliged to act on climate change, quick-like posted 1 year, 11 months ago 7 Responses

Replies to Charles

Hi Charles,

Thanks -- I'm a huge fan of yours actually. And at the risk of getting into a debate with someone much smarter than me, I'll hazard a couple of responses here.

First off, I wrote this post in about 15 minutes. If I had to do it over again I would have made it clearer that Sightline's not opposed to carbon taxes -- not all -- and, in fact, we've been promoting taxing shifting since we published our book "Tax Shift" in 1998. So I'm thrilled that heavyweights like Bloomberg are finally behind a pollution tax.

What I was objecting to in Bloomberg's speech was his straw man criticism of cap-and-trade. He correctly pointed out a number of flaws to the grandfathering (or free allocation) system, but did a disservice by essentially ignoring the many benefits of cap and auction. I just wanted to set the record straight.

In any case, the reason I support c&t is because it puts a firm cap on emissions. Price certainty isn't "all important," but reductions certainty is.

Taxes, while simpler and quicker to implement, don't provide certainty of reductions -- and they'd require a constant re-jiggering to find the correct level of reductions. Nonetheless, I believe taxes and c&t could be complimentary. And I'd love to see a carbon tax come online now, as a stop-gap measure, until we can put a hard limit in place and systematically drive emissions down under c&t.

Finally, in answer to your two questions:

1. I'll punt to science. As you know, everyone's arguing for 80% by 2050. That seems okay to me unless scientific understanding is leading us elsewhere.
   
2. I/we haven't taken a close enough look at Warner-Lieberman to take a position on it. We don't intend to.

EricOn Carbon taxes, cap-and-trade, and getting things right posted 2 years ago 4 Responses

Good point, John

Obviously, if Nickels gets to work in a (hybrid) SUV, then it therefore follows that he cannot do any good for the climate. Your logic is as impeccable as your grasp of population statistics. On Is there another side to Seattle's good news? posted 2 years ago 11 Responses

Seattle grew by about 11%

From 1990 to 2004. Check the data.

So Seattle's per capital emissions reductions have been(obviously), much steeper than the absolute reductions required to meet Kyoto's goals.

Also, King County is only about the 14th most populous county in the US -- it's nowhere near 2nd. (In geographic area, King Co isn't even the second largest county in Washington state, much less the country.)On Is there another side to Seattle's good news? posted 2 years ago 11 Responses

Couple of replies

Keith,

My understanding is that the "ghgs from hydro" argument has been somewhat overblown. I'm not closely familiar with the literature, but I've been told by knowledgeable folks that the problem is much pronounced in tropical settings where there is much fluctuation in the water level (more biomass grows quickly and is subsequently innudated). I think it's a less serious problem in temperate zones. (Please correct me if I'm mistaken!)

In any event, my power, which is supplied by Seattle City Light, has been subjected to fairly rigorous audits and it is considered the only large U.S. utility with zero net emissions. Still debatable, I suppose, but I'll leave it for another time...

On a related point, damns definitely degrade river systems -- no doubt about it. While City Light's power doesn't come from dams that block migrating fish, much hydro power does. And I'm not saying that hydro is environmentally benign, just that it's climate-friendly.

Finally, to caniscandida's point, about half of my trees and other plantings are native to western Washington. I live in an urban area where the terrestial ecosystem conversion is somewhere near 100%. So my backyard efforts aren't aimed to restore the native coastal forests and bog-meadows -- what I'm doing is just not comparable to wiscidea's laudable prairie restoration -- but simply to support some of the native critters, even while I make it a great place to hang out. It's been pretty successful for birds. Some of favorite, though rare, visitors include downy woodpeckers, golden-crowned sparrows, and even a sharp-shinned hawk. But I don't know enough about pollinators to have even the foggiest idea about whether my yard can be successful on those terms.  On Can planting trees offset your carbon footprint? posted 2 years, 2 months ago 20 Responses

Couple of replies

Whiskerfish, South Africa's emissions are almost exactly the same as California's. CA (which is the most populous state in the US) is the second highest-emitting state, after Texas. Not surprisingly, South Africa is by far the highest emitter in Africa.

Atreyger, my selection of countries was widly haphazard, in a sense. But it was actually a fairly pre-determined process because there are a lot of mid-level emitting states and not that many mid-level emitting countries. So I more or less had to just throw countries on the map when I could find matches. (Otherwise, states like, say, Tennessee would be labelled with the names of about 5 small countries.)

And there's this: there a million different ways to slice this stuff and quibble over it-- Population, land mass, GDP, resource base, history, climate, whatever. (I provided a population comparison because way more people ask for that than anything else.) There's no such thing as a strictly apples-to-apples comparison and I don't really care. On Feel guilty yet? posted 2 years, 5 months ago 7 Responses

because

d41295, good question. It's actually a bit of a  puzzler. Here goes.

The canister's label says that the contents' net weight is 10 fluid ounces (and  the canister's label says elsewhere that the contents are 100% percent HFC-134a). The nutty part is that the weight is also listed as 284 grams. That's odd because 284 grams would be the weight of 10 fluid ounces only if the contents weighed exactly the same as water, and it doesn't. HFC-134a is heavier than water.

So either the canister contains less than 10 fluid ounces, and the figure of 284 grams is correct; or, more likely, somebody made a quick (but inaccurate) conversion to grams using the "standard" (i.e. water weight) conversion. If there really are 10 fluid ounces of 134a, then there would something like 346 grams in the canister. And in that case, everything is much than the estimates I made in the post.

Whatever the weight -- 284 or 346 -- the contents' weight will be the same whether compressed into the canister or distributed into the air. On Why we should ban compressed chemical dusters posted 2 years, 7 months ago 31 Responses

And now hated by the people

Brand new poll results just released today say otherwise. 52% of registered voters in Oregon say they'd vote against it if they had a chance; only 37% would vote for it. You'll read about it in the papers tomorrow.

And this poll was conducted by Moore Information, a Republican-aligned polling firm. More here: http://www.sightline.org/daily_score/archive/2007/02/08/v ...On Maybe posted 2 years, 9 months ago 5 Responses

Not wrong

JMG,

Two quick responses.

1. Agreed, it was also objectionable that New London explicitly intended to hand Kelo's property over to private developers. My point was (intended to be) that there never would have been a court case at all -- much less one that made such big waves -- had the city first declared the property blighted.

2. WA's constitution actually does prohibit Kelo style takeovers. (To be fair, some recent court decisions have made it a little cloudier -- but it's still prohibited.) In any event, what you describe in Spokane and Vancouver is NOT what happened under Kelo. Again: what happened in Kelo is that the city did not first declare the property blighted.

I'll close by repeating something from my post: "The intermediate step of declaring something blighted is still open to possible abuses -- and perhaps the conditions under which blight can be declared should be tightened -- but it provides an important opportunity for citizens and property owners to put the brakes on unwelcome government actions."On Starting in Wash. posted 2 years, 10 months ago 5 Responses

More thoughts

Some additional thoughtful comments worth reading over at the Daily Score, where this was first posted. In particular, I think Dan Bertolet's point (#3) may be a TKO.

http://www.sightline.org/daily_score/archive/2007/01/03/a...On Is required green development smart public policy? posted 2 years, 10 months ago 15 Responses

zoning's two edges

Patrick,
I think that's a very important contribution to the conversation. You're absolutely right that we should be sensitive to unfairness.
To my way of thinking, zoning is a tool that's only as helpful (and moral) as the democracy that wields it. In that way it's like so many other of our institutions -- say, police power. It can be abused for awful ends, but I sure as heck wouldn't want to live without it. And I sure as heck wouldn't want to take it out of democratic oversight.On Regulatory takings initiatives tie communities' hands posted 3 years ago 9 Responses

Europe and property rights

I made that assertion on the basis of a seminar (and subsequent conversation) that I had with Harvey M. Jacobs, who's a professor at Univ. Wisconsin-Madison and affiliated with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. He's considered one of the leading experts on property rights movements and he's written extensively on the U.S. movement.

Lately, Jacobs has been researching a parallel movement in Europe. Now obviously, the precise legal basis will be different in Europe -- prop rights activists there can't very well refer to the takings clause of the US Constitution. But many of the same features are in play. They're trying to make an argument that they should be paid when property laws prevent them from maximizing profit on their land. And they're sharing information and strategy with the U.S. movement.

In Norway, for example, significant parts of the agricultural community are beginning to agitate for waivers from the ag. zoning that they are under (unless, of course, they get compensation). Some farmers and rural landowners want to convert their properties and be allowed to subdivide for vacation homes or develop other uses. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?On Western ballot measures would gut environmental protections posted 3 years ago 5 Responses

For the Birds

I'm only an amateur bird-nut so somebody please correct me if I'm wrong, but... Is it hard to imagine a WORSE siting for wind than South Padre? It's directly in the path of the largest(?) migratory bird route in the western hemisphere. Plus, the Texas islands are precisely where birds are at their weakeast (after traversing the Gulf of Mexico) and are least likely able to evade depredations. Birds by the thousands famously collapse on the sands, so exhausted are they by their migration.

Look, I'm as radibly pro clean energy as the next eco-geek (it's what I do full time). But it would be a huge tragedy to replace our destructive energy portfolio with one that hammered nails into the coffin for our dwindling biodiversity. Obviously we need clean power ASAP, but we should also be just a little smart about where to put it. On Wind farm follies posted 3 years, 6 months ago 47 Responses

And to elaborate...

amazingdrx,

Just to be clear, I'm not "endorsing" sugar cane as the remedy for climate change, at least not outside of Brazil. That's why I pointed out potential worries about the rainforest (though at present these worries are only speculative). Sugar cane is turning out to be an excellent clean and renewable fuel but, as I said in the post, it's not a solution for North America. What I was trying to point out is that even some of the most promising oil alternatives, such as sugar cane, have an unsavory cost.

EricOn What lessons can America learn from Brazil's energy independence? posted 3 years, 7 months ago 14 Responses

Preach it, brother

Brilliant post, Dave. Exactly right. On Facts are inert posted 3 years, 9 months ago 11 Responses

A Bit Overboard?

Interested readers can follow the fracas over at The Tyee: http://www.thetyee.ca/

But here's my reply to Chris...

Chris,

I must confess that I'm baffled by the venom in your response. A plain reading of my article reveals that--far from being "an opportunistic hit piece"--it was a set of musings and questions about the merits of Raincoast's buyouts and the larger question of which conservation strategies are most effective at protecting biodiversity. (I encourage readers to take a look at my original article and decide for themselves.)

As a lifelong advocate for wildlands and species protection I'm thrilled by much of what Raincoast has accomplished in BC. But I'm disappointed that Raincoast's good work is marred by an inability to brook even mild questioning. It is, I believe, worth pointing out that the ecological implications of hunting, even big game hunting, are complex. Personally, I find the trophy hunting of predators abhorrent, but that alone doesn't mean that, on the whole, it is bad for biodiversity. In fact, the totality of the ecosystem implications of hunting are far from clear and are a subject of ongoing debate among wildlife biologists.

My main objective with the article, a point that I fear may have been overlooked, was to suggest that conservation decisions can benefit from rigorous accounting practices. That is, we need to consider costs and benefits, leverage points, and opportunity costs. Conservationists may have additional ethical issues in mind--the rights of indigenous peoples, trails and access for users, and concerns about hunting, just to name a very few--but these issues ought to be treated separately from the essential question: how can we protect native biodiversity most effectively and efficiently?

In the original post on NEW's Cascadia Scorecard Weblog, and in its re-publication on The Tyee, I invited information from readers that would prove to me the wisdom of Raincoast's actions. Your article in response provides some (along with an unfortunate amount of embittered name calling).

For example, it's clearly germane--as you pointed out--that Horejsi et al. concluded that coastal grizzly populations are depressed and that sport hunting is contributing to the decline. But I remain unclear about why it matters, from a purely conservation perspective, whether guide-outfitter hunting resembles a search and destroy mission. A good conservation accounting would demonstrate that guide-outfitter hunting is especially damaging to grizzly populations in a way that other activities are not--such as hunting by BC residents, clearcut logging, road-building, and even ecotourism. At the least, a solid case could perhaps be made that these other threats cannot be addressed with the resources at hand, and so guide-outfitter rights are the best available buy. I would like to hear that case and be convinced that the buyouts were directed primarily at conservation and not simply at alleviating a practice that some (myself included) find disturbing (that is, trophy hunting).

It's also relevant that trophy hunting can have ecological implications that ripple beyond the individual animal killed, as Chris Darimont, the conservation biologist you cite, points out. This is a meaningful strike against trophy hunting and, while it is not the only consideration, it is precisely the sort of evidence that is worth weighing in the balance.

I admit, however, to being perplexed by carnivore expert Paul Paquet's argument, which you quote at length. For one thing, I never suggested that the "only" way to conserve large carnivores is to allow trophy hunting. Instead, I pointed out that trophy hunting has perversely beneficial effects in some contexts. As another example, I  was recently fortunate to visit the world's leading cheetah conservation center in South Africa. While interviewing their staff biologists I was surprised to learn that a large contingent of experts who have devoted themselves to protecting cheetahs actually support trophy hunting--on the grounds that not hunting cheetahs is actually worse for the animals in the long run. They were willing to take a hard look at the conservation realities and conduct a genuine accounting of the costs and benefits of limited hunting. Perhaps Raincoast has conducted such an analysis. If so, sharing it would help me, and many others, to understand the rationale for your strategy.

Finally, the overall strategy seems confused. If the point of buying the guide-outfitter rights is truly to protect native biodiversity, then the payoff seems small for such an expensive investment. As I understand it, because the buyout includes only certain guide-outfitter rights (not the less expensive rights for BC residents) it prevents the killing of a fairly small number of grizzlies per year and, if I'm not mistaken, the kill rate has been even lower in recent years.

Still willing to be convinced,

Eric de Place
On Raincoast responds to Eric de Place posted 3 years, 11 months ago 3 Responses

It's not just a lesson for greens

Emily, nice post, but I think you overlooked something even more profound in the story of the wolves. I quote your quote:

"we missed two things we need most: 1) the lessons our movement's celebrities -- wolves -- can teach us, and 2) hope."

Good points both, but the wolves have a lot more to say than "keep your chin up, enviro-types." The real lesson here is that environmentalists can and do change things for the better all the time. It seems to me that greens have done an absolutely appalling job of getting this message out. As a consequence the mainstream public thinks greens are constantly gloomy (quite right) and the world is doomed to ecological destruction (quite wrong).

I worry a lot that the movement is doomed to failure we only seem capable of talking about negatives. Sure, there are a lot of negatives to talk about, but there are also a surprising number of successes--and the general public must be made aware of how incredibly much the environmental movement has accomplished with such limited resources in such a short time. If people realize that we're not doomed to failure--that there is a real and meaningful chance at success--I believe there's almost unlimited potential for broader support of environmental initiatives.

That's what I like about the wolves: they are living and definitive proof that we can fix many of the things that we've broken. But it's not a lesson that should be primarily for greens, it's a success story that we should be shouting from the rooftops. On Successes of rural West shouldn't be overlooked posted 4 years, 5 months ago 3 Responses

Bison and the West

jdhlax-- I just checked the data available at NatureServe Explorer (http://www.natureserve.org/explorer/) and it confirmed what I thought: bison ranged across most of "the West," extending as far to the west as the edge of eastern Washington, eastern Oregon, and most of Nevada. (I'm sure there were gaps within their general distribution; and maybe they didn't occur in numbers as great as they did on the Great Plains.) But am I misinformed? What's the basis for your claim that bison didn't extend west of the Rockies?

On the other stuff, two things. 1) I don't think I put my point very clearly in the post, so maybe you didn't misinterpret it so much as I didn't say what I meant very well. 2) Sure, human population (and consumption) is totally out of whack with the world's ecosystems. I think we have a moral imperative to reduce our impact on the earth and help restore it. But "cancerous tumor"? Yikes. I like people; and while we produce a lot of crap (like Wal-Marts) we also create some pretty cool and beautiful stuff too (like farmer's markets and good novels and gin & tonics). Most days I don't want us to die out, I just want us to celebrate the earth instead of trampling it.On Eric de Place posted 4 years, 8 months ago 10 Responses