Thursday, September 30, 2010

Where the Sidewalk Ends

Hello Readers,

This past week has flown by in a low-carbon way! I've been making several contacts with potential clients interested in solar PV systems. I also started reading "In Defense of Food" by Michael Pollan, so I plan to write a review of it as soon as I'm finished reading it.

In the mean time, I wanted to offer some commentary on my on-going effort to live without a car. In all honesty, I have been driving a decent amount for work (during work) to meet clients and help coordinate projects. However, as I mentioned before, I've decided to see how long I can go without buying a new car for personal use.

So far, it has not been terribly difficult. I live about a tenth of a mile away from a Giant grocery store and about a mile away (or a 5 minute bike ride) from my office. Also, there are a bunch of restaurants and bars within a 15 minute walk. Thus, my need to drive is limited.

I expected that living within a town (West Chester, PA to be specific) would mean that it would be very walking-friendly. However, I have noticed that this particular town could stand to benefit from some basic improvements.

Perhaps, I am a little spoiled from the last few places I've lived... all of which had ample sidewalks (aka "pavement" in England) and/or large areas of pedestrianized streets. Thus, I was astonished to move to West Chester, which lacks even the most basics in sidewalk maintenance and coherence.

To explain by way of example, on my walk to work today I encountered... smooth well-paved sidewalks, grass yards without sidewalks, brick sidewalks (some with hills and/or foot-high tree roots), broken sidewalks, slanted sidewalks, still more yards without sidewalks, and finally well-paved sidewalks (once I got onto Gay Street downtown). For having to walk only a mile, the variety in sidewalk quality is unbelievable . There seems to be no regulation, empathy, or reason behind the sidewalks (or lack thereof).

As an able-bodied, sustainably-minded individual I am completely willing to forgo the comfort of a smooth, well-laid sidewalk. However, I could see how such a state of sidewalk maintenance would deter many others of a different mindset (and prevent those who are physically disabled).

So, Readers, I ask what have you done to improve the condition of the walkability of your town? As a newcomer to a town, how do you take action before you even know your neighbors? Do you have any similar stories/anecdotes?

Cheers,
Sean Diamond

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Coral Reef Bleaching Article

Hello Readers,

I just started to get into the full swing of my new job, so I don't have a full post for this week. Instead, I'm just going to point you too an interesting article about coral bleaching.

Till next time,
Sean Diamond



Extreme Heat Bleaches Coral, and Threat Is Seen
By JUSTIN GILLIS
Published: September 20, 2010
In New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/21/science/earth/21coral.html

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

"Local Climate Actions" and "Don't Know What to Believe"

Hello Readers,

In an excellent follow up to my post to about car free cities, the Yale Forum on Climate Change recently posted an article on the impact of local actions to mitigate climate change. The article profiles the struggles of Fort Collins, Colorado as the city tries to lower their greenhouse gas emissions. It also gives a thorough list of useful websites for those interested in city-based climate initiatives and organizations, which I will repost at the bottom of this article. Although, I recommend you read the full article.

In the meantime, I wanted to share a brief anecdote. Today, at a dentist appointment I struck up a conversation with one of the ladies working there. After I told her that I had just returned from studying climate change science, she explained that she "just wasn't convinced". I decided to persist a little to try to find out why. She explained that it was just hard to tell who to believe and questioned the motivation of the scientists. After I told her about my experience at UEA during the email-hacking scandal and the subsequent investigations, she was surprised to find out what the conclusions were about the independent investigations. It turned out she had only vaguely heard about scandals in climate change science, and she did what everybody does about news stories that are interesting but not integral to their lives: she caught the headlines from several directions but missed the follow-up stories.

I found this encounter particularly instructive. As a proponent of sustainability and climate change action, I learned it is not a good idea to rely on public follow up. It is necessary to confirm that others have heard about the news you have before trying to have a conversation about disagreements.

Until next time...
Sean Diamond

List of Links from Yale Forum on Climate Change

World Urbanization Prospects:
The 2009 Revision

ICLEI — Local Governments for Sustainability
ICLEI is an international association of local governments and their associations that have made a commitment to sustainable development
*   ICLEI USA
United States Conference of Mayors Climate Protection Center
The U.S. Conference of Mayors Climate Protection Agreement commits cities to reduce emissions to seven percent below 1990 levels by 2012. At least 1,044 mayors have joined to reduce carbon emissions in their cities in line with the Kyoto Protocol.
*   The U.S. Conference of Mayors’ Climate Protection Agreement
Global Carbon Project’s Urban and Regional Carbon Management Initiative
URCM was launched in 2005 as a place-based and policy-relevant scientific initiative aimed to support carbon management and sustainable urban development.
*   City Action Plans
*   Urban Regional Carbon Management: Publications
OECD: Cities and CC
C40 is a group of large cities committed to tackling climate change.
*   Current C40 initiatives about each of the cities involved.

Metropolis: World Association of the Major Metropolises
Created in 1985, the Metropolis Association is represented by more than 100 members from around the world and operates as an international forum for exploring issues and concerns common to all big cities and metropolitan regions. Metropolis also manages the Metropolitan Section of United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG).
Connected Urban Development
Connected Urban Development (CUD) demonstrates how to reduce carbon emissions by introducing fundamental improvements in the efficiency of urban infrastructure through information and communications technology (ICT). CUD was born from Cisco’s commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative to participate in helping reduce carbon emissions. The founding CUD cities are: San Francisco, Amsterdam, and Seoul. In 2008 four new cities joined the program — Birmingham, Hamburg, Lisbon, and Madrid — beginning a new phase for CUD and opening new avenues for collaboration in promoting smart urban environments globally.
Sustainable Cities Institute
The Sustainable Cities Institute (SCI), built by The Home Depot Foundation, is working with cities across the country as a resource to assist in planning and implementing local sustainable strategies through the use of its vetted best practices, communication tools and an innovative city program.
Research and Information
Global Cities Indicator
The Global City Indicators Program provides an established set of city indicators with a globally standardized methodology that allows for global comparability of city performance and knowledge sharing. This website serves all cities that become members to measure and report on a core set of indicators through this web-based relational database.
United Nations University: International Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change
HDP’s activities focus on three principal areas: developing and sustaining cutting-edge research; developing world-wide capacity to understand and deal with these challenges; and promoting interaction between scientists and policymakers on these topics. Cutting-edge science pushes the research agenda and urgency of action towards global environmental change forward, by continually identifying and addressing contemporary topics through its network of scientific projects.
Tyndall Center: Cities and Coasts
Our programme on building resilience and decreasing the vulnerability of people and places, with particular reference to cities and coasts, aims to bring greater integration to our work on coastal communities, cities and adaptation. Given the widespread consequences of climate change on ecosystems throughout society, adaptation represents a major challenge to future sustainability.
UN-Habitat: Climate Change and Cities
The United Nations Human Settlements Programme, UN-HABITAT, is the United Nations agency for human settlements. It is mandated by the UN General Assembly to promote socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities with the goal of providing adequate shelter for all.
*   UN-HABITAT Climate Change Strategy 2010-2013

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Exploring Car Free

Hello Readers,

Today, I was directed by a Dickinson alumni newsletter to an interesting BBC radio broadcast about Cars and Culture. The piece looks at the political ideology behind car use in the US and USSR during the cold war. While focusing on the US culture, the piece briefly references the concept that the ideals of individual freedom for which the car originally stood may no longer hold true.

This got me thinking about my personal car situation. I sold my car before leaving for grad school, and now that I have returned to the US I have decided to see how long I can go without buying a car. Fortunately, I have landed a job in a relatively small town and my new job is at a place that has company cars and vans. This means that my lack of car ownership will only affect my own personal travel ambitions and not my employment.

Of course, my circumstances are somewhat unique, but after visiting Boston this past weekend I was reminded that living without a car in other places could also be possible. On the other hand, I have to ask why living without a car needs to be the exception rather than the rule.

To help answer this question, I took a look at CarFree.com. The website outlines some of the basic requirements for cities designed for car free living. Such a place would even take things a step further than allowing people to reasonably live without cars. Instead, such places discourage car use/ownership and offer better alternatives!

The website references a number of places that are car free or have car free zones. However, I could not find any examples of towns that had been retrofitted to be car free (i.e. had once been designed for car-use, but are now car free). Does this mean that entirely new towns and cities need to be built in order to achieve freedom from cars? I plan to continue investigating this concept. If you find any examples of retrofitted car free towns, please let me know!

Until next time,
Sean Diamond

P.S. another promising car free resource: http://www.worldcarfree.net/

Friday, September 3, 2010

IAC review of the IPCC

Hello Readers,

As I indicated in my previous post, I wanted to read the full IAC review of the IPCC before offering any real commentary on their findings. For the most part, the results of the review were not particular surprising. The IAC commented on the need for significant improvements to the IPCC's communications strategies (e.g. responding to errors and criticisms in the media). It explained the deficiencies that resulted from the different working groups interpreting the uncertainty guidelines differently, and made recommendations to expedite the review processes.

The main point that I found surprising -after finishing a year-long excursion into the science of climate change- was the proportion of non-peer-reviewed literature used in the assessments.
"An analysis of the 14,000 references cited in the Third Assessment Report found that peer-reviewed journal articles comprised 84 percent of references in Working Group I, but only 59 percent of references in Working Group II and 36 percent of references in Working Group III (Bjurström and Polk, 2010)."
The IAC review explains that this has a lot to do with the less heavily researched fields assessed in Working Groups II & III (i.e. "impacts of climate change and strategies for adaptation" and "mitigation options" respectively) that depend on social sciences and predicting human responses in the future. Whereas, Working Group I, which focuses more on physical sciences, relies more heavily on observations and global models.

Despite such explanations, the distinction between the various amounts of 'gray literature' in the Working Groups is an important issue, and the IAC's recommendation for more clarity surrounding its use should not go unheeded. While the exclusive use of peer-reviewed articles would eliminate useful information sources (e.g. government and farming record databases), the apparent opaqueness of the use of gray literature in the IPCC assessments (as highlighted by the IAC) seems unacceptable. For a comparison, I cannot imagine a doctoral candidate being allowed to cite so much gray literature in a thesis (especially without any accompanying justification!), so why should the IPCC take such liberties?

Well, that's all that I have to say about the IAC review. In case you are interested: the IAC report on IPCC processes and procedures is intended to inform discussions at the 32nd session of the IPCC Plenary, which will be held in South Korea in October 2010, and work on the fifth assessment and subsequent assessments.

Sincerely,
Sean Diamond

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

2 Tips for Understanding Climate Change Scientists

Hello Readers,

On Monday of this week, The InterAcademy Council released a new report that advises the IPCC on changes that should be made to its structure and processes. After I have time to read and process the report, I'll try to offer some informed commentary on it.

In the meantime, I was struck by a few lines from the preface of the executive summary:
Scientific debates have always involved controversies over the value and importance of particular classes of evidence, and this can be expected to continue. Moreover, all scientific knowledge always contains some level of uncertainty and any actions based on scientific evidence inevitably involves an assessment of risk and a process of risk management.
These words should be read as a disclaimer to anyone reading the IPCC reports (or really any scientific article or op-ed piece). If you take these two sentences into consideration before reading any climate change related paper, you should be able to understand what climate change scientists are actually trying to say (and avoid being hoodwinked by climate change skeptics).

In plain English, the first sentence indicates that technical disagreements between scientists about the exact figures and types of evidence should not be misconstrued (as they often are by skeptics) as forms of non-consensus. As an over-simplified example, if Bob and Frank (2 hypothetical scientists who have been studying climate science for decades) are debating which technique for estimating global mean temperature is "best", Bob may suggest that warming over the next several decades will be X degrees while Frank argues that it will instead be Y degrees. This means that both scientists, which are using different techniques to calculate their estimations, agree that warming will occur. They are just unable to agree on the extent of the warming.

Unfortunately, many skeptics will look at such disagreement and claim that since Bob and Frank cannot agree there is no consensus. They may even take it several steps further to conclude that such varying results mean that none of the results can be trusted. This is simply not the case.

The second sentence in the quote helps to explain why there can be technical disagreements between Bob and Frank without "disproving" or negating the general conclusions. The most important word of the quote being uncertainty. Scientific uncertainty has a fairly specific meaning, and it is normally discussed as a range of uncertainty. On the most basic level, scientific uncertainty relates to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. While the uncertainty principle has a specific definition, it in essence means that no matter how sophisticated technology becomes scientific measurements will never be able to be 100% accurate.

Thus, scientists make measurements and estimations to a degree of uncertainty that is deemed acceptable (or as accurate as possible given the equipment at their disposal). This means that even though Bob and Frank do not have figures that align perfectly, the figures from Bob, Frank, and 10 other scientists can be compared to find a range of uncertainty. Such a range should give you a pretty good idea of what is likely to happen. Unfortunately, skeptics jump on the ambiguity that the word uncertainty conjures in the mind of the non-scientist in order to make their own claims seem more credible.

I hope you this post helps you to have a better grasp on climate change debates and articles!

Sean Diamond