Earth Hour 2013

Earth Hour today, but frankly, I don’t think everyone turning off the lights would make much of a difference, for the following reasons:

• If candles are used to compensate, CO₂ emitted by the candles will more than make up for what wasn’t emitted by power plants.
• It is pure “slacktivism”, which will make people feel like they are making a difference while not actually having much of an effect.
• At best, Earth Hour raises awareness. While that is important, more substantive action is necessary.

Much better individual things you can do about climate change include:

• Eat less meat, especially of ruminants. Most people in North America consume way more protein than is necessary to stay alive.
• Walk more and drive less. Telecommute if possible.
• Rather than turning up the heat when you’re cold, put on a sweater or blanket instead.
• Not use air conditioning or use it less. Closing curtains to prevent the sun from shining in can have a substantial cooling effect.
• Using no–till no–till gardening. Modern soil management practices release CO₂ from the soil, while no–dig methods turn soil into a carbon sink.
• Replace old appliances, lightbulbs, transportation, etc. with more efficient models.
• Get rid of “heat leaks”, like tiny gaps under doors, around doorknobs, etc. By blocking these you’ll keep more heat in your house, thereby needing to use less energy to heat it.
• Get rid of “vampire power.” These are things like remote-controlled appliances. When a remote–controlled appliances is “off”, it still draws power to maintain standby mode, so it can detect any on signal. The only way to get rid of this “vampire power” is to unplug them.

Several of these things are good for reasons other than climate change. By walking more, you’ll be physically fit and healthier. If put on a sweater rather than turning up the heat, you’ll save money. Ditto for heat leaks.

The killers in your house

A new study has found that domestic cats are among the most prolific predators in the world:

Domestic cats kill between 1.4 billion and 3.7 billion birds and up to 20 billion small rodents each year, according to researchers at the Migratory Bird Center of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute.

The report, published Tuesday, found that cats — particularly strays — are “likely the single greatest source of anthropogenic mortality for U.S. birds and mammals.”

The study went on to note that feral cats are damaging and threatening to ecosystems.

This study reminds me of an incident with a really friendly cat that used to live in my neighbourhood. Once it made a plaintive meow and wanted to come in. Turned out it had caught a starling. When it came in it released the starling and started chasing after it inside the house. At one point, the starling landed on the kitchen table, and the cat just about pulled off the tablecloth (and dishes) before I managed to stop the tablecloth. Eventually, I managed to grab the cat and put it in another room while I shooed the starling out with a broom.

Link farm and a random thought

In no particular order:

The ultimate in data storage. Scientists have found a way to store digital information in DNA. The storage method is sophisticated enough that all information currently in hard drives could fit into the palm of your hand.

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Quote of the day (emphasis added):

“What always interests me about defenders of creationism is how they clearly don’t think of children as people in their own right, but instead property that you use to enact your ideological obsessions.”

I personally would edit that quote to include the entirety of the rotten parental rights movement. Those people really do see their own kids as enemies and who’ll do anything to prevent those children from thinking for themselves and not being a projection or perfect reflection of the parents. Libby Anne at Love, Joy, Feminism has emphasized this point multiple times.

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Solar power is well on its way to becoming cheaper than coal. It might reach that point before the end of the decade. This is important, as it would eliminate much of the point of burning coal, which is important for climate change mitigation. (It’s still better to start today, however).

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I fully agree with these suggestions on how to write a better fantasy story. (Via all these people).

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Did you know that (supposedly) the committee of the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women supposedly “Told Libya to re-interpret the Koran in the light of CEDAW”? To rational people, this is an excellent reason to support the CEDAW. But, Echidne found out, wingnuts actually use this as a justifiation for opposing the CEDAW. To their credit, at least they’re honest.

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Two of the comments on a post on Brute Reason have won awards. You just have to see them.

And yes, I did manage to read and finish what is visible of the first comment. It starts repeating itself part way through Can’t it be all new woo?

This post has been edited since publication.

Perhaps it’s time to start the alternative

The Arbourist has a post about a small company that has a proposal to create liquid fuels out of water and carbon dioxide from the air. While the proposal looks promising, since, as far as I can tell, it takes more energy to create the liquid fuel than is released by burning that fuel, and that any carbon extracted from the atmosphere while creating the fuel will ultimately be re–emitted when that fuel is used, I have difficulty seeing how much of a difference this particular technology would make. (See also my comments at the Arbourist’s post). However, if new evidence or technology emerges that allows this technology to make more of a difference, I will certainly change my mind about it.

And The Arbourist’s post got me thinking. Since there has been much resistance to making more than a token effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, perhaps it is time to put geoengineering on the table. That might potentially be the best hope for avoiding disaster. While I am not actively suggesting we start geoengineering, I am suggesting we put it on the table. This is important considering our collective failure to make much effort towards mitigation of global warming and climate change.

Geoengineering is not science fiction. Several of the proposals have analogues that happen naturally. And it is not decades away. As far as I can tell, the following proposals are pretty much shovel ready, and we could start tomorrow if there was a serious effort, and with no significant research yet to be done or technology to be developed:

• Atmospheric sulphur aerosols
• Grassland restoration
• Cool roofs
• Enhanced weathering

These proposals each have a number of advantages and disadvantages (discussed after the jump):

Why a carbon tax is the way to go

An editorial in the New York Times got me thinking about why a carbon tax is a better way to fight global warming and climate change than either cap–and–trade or efficiency regulations.

Here are several reasons I can think of:

• Carbon taxes always provide an incentive to pollute less and use less energy. Even if you cut carbon emissions by half, you still are paying taxes for the carbon you do emit, and therefore still have an incentive to eliminate it. Compare this with efficiency regulations, where someone has no incentive to reduce energy use once the regulation is met. In addition, all too often regulations are designed by businesses themselves, so as to prevent competition (rent seeking). Also compare this with cap–and–trade, where a source of carbon credits may well allow heavy polluters to continue, just because they have deep pockets. A lot of money will not allow someone to avoid paying a carbon tax.
• Carbon taxes drive both individuals and companies to use less energy. Cap–and–trade is usually done by businesses, and efficiency regulations only impact new products (unless old ones are mandated to be destroyed).
• According to the editorial, a carbon tax is far cheaper than efficiency standards once a global view of costs is taken into account.
• Carbon taxes (especially those on fuel) make people drive less and live in denser environments. On a per capita basis, cities are more energy–efficient than suburbs. For example, recycling and public transit are more feasible in densely–populated areas. And people who drive less are less sedentary and therefore healthier.
• It is possible that cap–and–trade and efficiency standards alone will not do enough to mitigate climate change.
• A carbon tax is easier to offset as part of a green tax shift than other methods. It can even lead to lower tax levels overall, such as here in British Columbia (cite).
• Efficiency improvements are subject to the rebound effect, where the decreased cost of using a resource partially offsets gains from using it more efficiently. A carbon tax does not generate perverse incentives.
• A carbon tax is easier to adjust. If too many pollution permits are issued, cap–and–trade will not have much of an effect since it is harder to eliminate privately–owned pollution permits.
• Many countries that export oil are rentier states, which means that they earn most of their revenue from natural resource royalties. Those royalties pay for oppressive paramilitary forces that enforce authoritarianism in those countries. A carbon tax will eventually reduce revenues received by those countries, improving freedom there and those countries’ human rights situations.

Hence, for all of the above reasons, a carbon tax is the way to go. My preferred offset is to payroll taxes. But such has virtually no chance of being enacted in the United States (a better chance in Canada [I hope]), due to the extreme polarization and total irrationality (and far worse!) of a number of politicians there. And since climate change is a major danger, Christian conservatism’s climate change denialism makes it, in the long run, the world’s most dangerous ideology.

Child of the random stuff

In no particular order:

• Brilliant takedown of someone who fails to understand that freedom of expression does not mean freedom from criticism.
• Have you ever seen a more obvious and more blatant example of deliberately losing? At least they got what they deserved.
• Vietnam (of all places) might enable marriage equality. If it does so, Vietnam will be the first country in Asia to do so. Get with the times, USA.
  • I wonder when the wingnuts will start claiming that marriage equality is some communist plot.
• China’s brutal athlete training methods. They seem uncomfortably close to the “professional amateurs” some communist countries used to use.
• A must–read post about maladaptive daydreaming. Please, please read it.
• The Sensuous Curmudgeon fisks a creationist who’s so far along the downward spiral of stupid that they claim “[plants] are not alive.”
  • No, that’s not a Poe and no, I’m not making this up.

Abolish DST

As the clever reminder goes, tomorrow is the day we are supposed to spring forward, and later in the year we are supposed to fall back. This is due to Daylight Savings Time, and it is intended to save energy by not wasting evening daylight. In reality, DST costs energy in location. While more evening daylight does mean that people use less electricity for lighting, in warmer places this savings is more than offset by increased energy use through air conditioning. That’s why DST costs energy and should be abolished.