A fairly accurate critique of climate advocates and global warming advocacy can be that we can be a bit depressing.  This is not surprising when we are telling a story about how current trends will lead to large portions of the world becoming uninhabitable and sea levels rising to swallow many of our coastal cities and every day another study comes out that shows even the unenforceable and aspirational pledges by our governments will not be met and we face “potentially disastrous consequences.”

But an different and reoccurring theme in work around climate is interesting interaction with “adult” beverages like wine, beer and other alcoholic beverages – and not just because it is tempting to give up and just spend the day drinking (perhaps at a Green Drinks event for environmentalists).

There is the story of a leading climate scientist who is also a wine expert – and therefore the leading voice on the impact of global warming on the production of wine – a very serious matter when you consider that changing climate will undermine the ability of centuries old vineyards to thrive. Similar concerns bedevil the world of beer, where a changing climate endangers the production of the hops that are the heart of quality beer.

But spirits may also be part of the vast bank of solutions that we will need to make the fundamental shift in our economy and society that will be needed to stop our runaway greenhouse gas emissions.  Advanced biofuels, like high energy biobutanol, may well prove to be one of the many tools we will need to power a thriving post-carbon economy and entrepreneurs and researchers in Britain are working on converting distillery waste into that fuel – creating the possibility that brown liquor could helps us to go green and save ourselves from the consequences of global warming like the sea level rise that threatens our beaches and coastal communities.

MIT graduate student Zach Youngerman asks an excellent question in an opinion piece in the Boston Globe: Did bad neighborhood design doom Trayvon Martin?

Of course, my lawyerly impulse is to say that clearly urban planning and local culture was not the “proximate cause” of that young man’s death – clearly the man with the gun is the place to look for that.

But Mr. Youngerman makes a very good point – a place that lacks the “eyes on the street” (to use the phrase that he quotes from the great urbanist writer Jane Jacobs), sidewalks and where there are few sidewalks transforms the fundamental human activity of walking into suspicious behavior. As Mr. Youngerman says, “. . . behavior is not simply a matter of character; it is also a matter of setting. Less than 1.2 percent of the population in Sanford walks to work, and the subdivision where the killing took place is designed for driving, so something as human as walking is odd behavior. Suspicious even.”

What does any of this have to do with “low carbon communities”?  Why is this grist for the blog of an environmental group?

Because, among the many tragic consequences (along with the kind of tragic incidents like the one that ended the life of Mr. Martin) of these isolating communities is deep dependence on the automobile.  As Mr. Youngerman concludes, “Maybe with a small convenience store or café in the clubhouse, Zimmerman wouldn’t have gotten into his car to go to Target. Maybe he would have walked to the clubhouse, and simply passed Martin on a sidewalk designed for him to be there.”

The connection between good neighborhood design, smarter growth, reduced driving and lowering greenhouse gas emissions is well documented by government, academics and advocates.  These liveable communities allow all residents to live their lives with a minimum of driving and create a safe place for raising “free-range kids” who can safely walk to the store and back again.  They also allow us to build smarter communities where we are not constantly in our cars producing the emissions that threaten to subject our communities to the constant hazard of extreme weather and other dangerous effects of global warming. Effects which will be especially marked in places like Florida where even inland communities face very real and looming threats to the supply of drinking water as sea levels rise and the porous stone that underlies the states and are home to its vulnerable aquifers face saltwater intrusion.

Can walkable community where there are stores on every corner, a constant flow of pedestrians and those “eyes on the street” guarantee the safety of our children and solve global warming? Of course not – but they are part of the many solutions we will need to embrace to solve these problems. And as we plan and build our future we need to truly protect all of our children and our communities by making smart and well considered decisions about how we build, grow and travel as well as how we treat each other in the dark of night.

Climate Scientist Katherine Hayhoe is an evangelical Christian who sees her work and the need to protect the earth as deeply consistent with her faith.

Read all about her at Climate Central.  Buy her book, co-written with her husband who, like Dr. Hayhoe, is a Professor at Texas Tech. He is also the Pastor of their church.

Given the latest science showing that the models that predict the exact march of global warming appear to be overly conservative and underestimating the effects of the warming in progress and the strong likelihood that we are about to cross an irrevocable tipping point that commits the planet to deeply damaging warming it is not crazy to suggest that we need science, prayer and action.

The need for action and steps to be taken to address this crisis is not abstract.  The latest massive compilation of science shows the very real effects that global warming is having all around us and will increasingly inflict upon us.  The need to build resilient communities that can survive (and even thrive) in these conditions is very real.  However, it is equally vital that we reduce the emissions that are disrupting the climate.  This means building renewable energy of many sizes and types, it means making our society and economy more efficient, properly planning and building our communities and providing and funding safe and clean transit and spreading and truly implementing efforts like the Massachusetts Global Warming Solutions Act and the greenhouse gas regulations being slowly rolled out by the Federal government.

The size, scale and nature of the crisis we face must spur all of us, whether we are motivated by a purely secular moral motivation to watch out for our fellow humans and/or other planetary passengers or the religious mission that guides someone like Dr. Hayhoe, to act. Because if we don’t we truly don’t have a prayer.

I am not the only person to find a sharp description of our unfortunate political and cultural situation in W.B. Yeats dark meditation on the aftermath of World War I: The Second Coming.

Many remember that poem for the hair-raising question that comes at its end, “. . . what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”

However, the poem also famously states: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity.”

It is hard to imagine a more accurate statement of the problem around the climate debate where denial is often presented with powerful zeal and, too often, truth is presented in a tentative manner.

However, fortunately, sometimes the tellers of truth show powerful courage.  Doctor Michael Mann, a leading climate scientist, is one of those who has refused to temper his message and bow in the face of those who denounce him for clearly and powerfully presenting the results of his research.   He tells the story of his life, his research, the attacks upon him and the lessons he has learned from these experiences in a deeply readable book, “The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars”

His book is required reading for all those who want to understand climate science – as well as those who want an inside view of a critical political and cultural debate between sound science and ideologically driven denial.

In the short term this remarkable book presents a happy ending as Dr. Mann is able to continue with his work and survive scurrilous attack. However, like a monster movie that ends with a moment of peace that fades into ominous music and a hint of the horrible threat just waiting to burst on the scene, the book ends with a question: Will humanity listen to the message of science and avert the catastrophe of a warming and disrupted planet?

It has been apparent for some time that anyone who lives, works or is generally attached to a coastal community should be very concerned about the effects of sea level rise flowing from global warming.

A comprehensive new scientific paper and data tool, that builds on prior analysis, like the “Climate’s Long Term Impact on Boston” from 2005, is getting broad and deep press interest.

What is particularly striking is the ability to use this tool to look at the likely and predictable effects of sea level rise on particular places.  For example, applying the tool to the Boston waterfront confirms that epicenter of new development in the city is right in the bulls eye of sea level rise and if current trends continue the only way to enjoy the new restaurants in that area will involve swimming.

This realization should drive us both to plan in a way that acknowledges this very real threat but also to be even more serious and focused in our efforts to sharply reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that are the underlying cause of the damage that is being done to our climate.

Update – The debate about this phenomena continues.  See compilation of further ruminations about continued available petroleum and climate from a variety of powerful voices in another post from June 11, 2012.  And some of the same ideas are chewed on in an interesting op-ed by Reuters editor Chrystia Freeland in the August 9, 2012 New York Times.

In 1991 Daniel Yergin published his massive history of the petroleum industry, The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power. Regardless of what you think about Yergin’s perspective on the topic, it is hard to dispute the complete and authoritative nature of that book. It provided a guided tour through the life of one of the defining industries of the 20th century and remains a powerful and surprisingly readable look at this essential subject.

In the years that followed there was strong interest in an update to The Prize that brought the story up towards the present and grappled with challenges to the ascendancy of petroleum in our economy and society – like the realization that global warming caused by burning fossil fuels is causing deep and systemic damage to the planet.

In 2011 Doctor Yergin did produce that much awaited sequel, The Quest: Energy, Security and the Remaking of the Modern World. That book contains six full chapters detailing the evolution of modern climate science and leaves no doubt about the fundamental validity of the observation that the phenomena of global warming from the burning of petroleum and other fossil fuels is indeed, very real.

However, that point must play out against the backdrop of Dr. Yergin’s deep and abiding belief that the there is no such thing as “peak oil” – that global oil production may plateau and stop rising but that improvements in technology mean that we will never see a steep decline in exploitable oil reserves. Indeed, he is even more firm in his belief that if you look at the broader array of fossil hydrocarbons, including natural gas, that the progression of technologies like hydraulic fracturing and its deployment across the world will lead to continued availability of such fuels at fairly low prices for the long term – really, he argues, indefinitely. This is a hard perspective for a climate advocate to ponder – he is in effect arguing that continued availability of hydrocarbons is an “inconvenient truth” that those addressing the challenge of global warming must face, that the argument that “we are running out of the stuff anyway” is simply not part of the debate about continued use of fossil fuels.

But Dr. Yergin has his own dilemma to confront: he does not address the fundamental collision between his observations about the validity of climate science and his belief that we are not in danger of running out of affordable hydrocarbons. This is an especially difficult circle for him to square as he is fundamentally an optimist – believing that society has always found technological solutions to the problems we have encountered and created for ourselves in the past and we will do so again. To Dr. Yergin’s credit he does engage renewable energy and energy efficiency, the  key tools for decarbonizing our economy, at  length in The Quest but never quite gets to the point of describing a path to a future where we are no longer burning fossil fuels and putting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

It would be very difficult for Dr. Yergin to fully confront the dilemma implicit in his work – that the presence of affordable hydrocarbons (oil and/or natural gas) for indefinite future will create a strong pull constantly moving us away from making the reductions in our greenhouse gas emissions that science tells us we need to make in order to save ourselves.

Bill McKibben has noted on many occasions, getting off fossil fuels will be the hardest thing that humanity has ever done and the only thing that would be harder would be living in the world where we don’t. And Dr. Yergin is telling us that his expert analysis is that it will be even harder than many believe to make that transition because new technologies and techniques will continue to increase the pool of available fossil fuels – but he has looked at the climate science and he does not deny that we must make the transition.

Steven Syre, in his widely read Business news column in the Boston Globe, delves into one of the many important aspects of the settlement between the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and Northeast Utilities and NStar, setting the stage for those two utilities to proceed with their plans to merge. As he notes, most of the attention (understandably) about that settlement has been focused on the provision regarding the purchase of power, by NStar on behalf of its customers, from the Cape Wind project.

However, Syre discusses the provisions of the settlement regarding imports of power from large hydroelectric facilities in Quebec into New England. He notes that the settlement includes a commitment by the Massachusetts utilities signing the agreement that they would not use any large hydropower to meet state-mandated renewable energy targets for the next five years and describes the concerns that lead to this conclusion.

Syre describes how, “State officials and others point to several reasons why it would be a bad idea to count hydropower as a source of power that qualifies as renewable energy. They say that such a designation could increase the price of hydropower and hinder the long-term development of other forms of renewable energy.”

He notes that:

“Other critics even think Hydro-Quebec’s environmental benefits are being oversold. A new study commissioned by the Conservation Law Foundation says large-scale Canadian hydropower will produce ‘substantial greenhouse gas emissions that are comparable to those of modern natural gas-fired power plants.’”

CLF’s take on the agreement grows out of our deep involvement in the merger proceeding and our engagement with many issues that are addressed in the settlement. These include both the Cape Wind project and the questions about the net environmental impact of large hydroelectric power. CLF commissioned the study that Syre discusses, as well as a related analysis that highlights the existential threat to New England-based renewable power from designating large hydropower as eligible for financial incentives under our renewable energy laws.

All of the provisions of the agreement work together to move towards the goal of net gain for the customers of the merging companies and movement towards attaining the important environmental goals of Massachusetts. As Sue Reid of CLF, our lead advocate on the merger, said about the settlement, it is a significant advancement for Massachusetts and all of New England in a number of regards:

• It removes the last major hurdle to building Cape Wind;
• It ensures that the Commonwealth will continue to reap the cost savings and environmental benefits of the Massachusetts Green Communities Act;
• It will help ensure that imported hydropower does not diminish other renewable energy deployment in Massachusetts and beyond;
• It will reduce barriers to installation and operation of small, distributed renewable energy generating facilities in Massachusetts; and
• It will freeze the merged utility’s rates for 4 years, will require transparent public review of NSTAR’s electric and gas rates before the rate freeze expires, and will deliver – upon approval of the merger – an immediate 50% credit to Massachusetts customers based on expected merger savings during the first 4 years following merger approval.

All of these provisions are significant and are reason to hail this agreement as an important landmark in the evolution of our energy system and the march towards a cleaner and better future where our economy, environment and communities can all thrive.

Working with Americans for a Clean Energy Grid and the New England Clean Energy Council we here at the Conservation Law Foundation had the privilege to co-sponsor the New England Clean Energy Transmission Summit.  We were overwhelmed by the massive turnout and tremendous interest from the general press as well as trade press (subscription required).

I will write more about the event in later posts but we wanted to get out into the world the videos of two of the keynote speeches.

Our informative and inspiring lunch speaker was Rep. Ed Markey (D-Malden MA), the Ranking Democratic Member of the House Natural Resources Committee and Senior Member of the Energy and Commerce Committee. The whole video is well worth watching and features some powerful comments about climate, the state of politics and reasons for both fear and hope.

The last panel featured a video message from Bill McKibben who was unable to follow through on his plans to come and speak because of his need to be in Washington to lead efforts to “blow the whistle on Big Oil” and how dirty energy was cheating in Congress.  But give him a listen to understand where he was and the essential imperative facing our energy system, environment, nation and world.

Overwhelming thanks to the folks at Americans for A Clean Energy Grid who did the hard work of managing the event, filming it and now hosting on their website all the videos and powerpoints from the event.

Next week I’ll be participating in a clean energy summit in Boston that will feature Congressman Ed Markey and FERC Commissioner Cheryl LaFleur. Attendance at this event is free. Please RSVP today.

This event brings together key Federal officials from the Administration and Congress, their state counterparts, clean energy industry leaders and the environmental community and energy consumers to forge clean energy solutions that benefit our economy and our environment drawing on the full range of options from renewable energy to transmission infrastructure to demand side solutions like energy efficiency.

Please join me and others for this engaging, important conversation.

New England Clean Energy Transmission Summit

January 23, 2012
9:00am – 4:30 pm

RSVP for FREE

Agenda: Click here

The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston
Connolly Center, Fourth Floor
600 Atlantic Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts

Featuring:

Congressman Ed Markey
U.S. House of Representatives

Commissioner Cheryl LaFleur
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)

Seth Kaplan
Conservation Law Foundation