What do I think, What can I do?

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Margin Call, how much margin we have?

Image from London city

Picture taken in Londons city, close to many financial companies

Today I have seen the film Margin Call. I have really enjoyed it, maybe because I do not go too much to the cinema, surelly because the film is absolutelly great. And even if it seems far from climate change issues, it has led me to think in those two aspects:

1.- Before 2008 some people were warning about toxic assets, or financial great risk. I do not know if they were reputed experts or solitary voices (in the film many of the managers say I told you). Nevertheless, we could be in the same position after a climate disaster, saying I told you but nobody did what had to be done. In some cases the risks are only understood by most of the people when it is too late and it looks evident.

2.-  Considering the financial turmoil we are in (in Europe specially) due to loses of values of some things we considered more valuables (houses, mortages, debts). What could happen if we suddenly realize that some cities might be under the water not very long? Or that some lands might not be so productive due to climate changes? Or that water supplies might be a real nightmare? I am not an economist, but I have the strong felling that some of the economic negative effects of climate change will become true just when enough people is aware of them even before happening. Because the fears spread out fast in society and economy. And some people still continue to focus on short term cost of carbon emission regulations…

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My feelings: Why I believe in Climate Change (II)

I studied physics, I have some friends working in basic research, and myself work in applied research in a classical Industry. With this background I am inclined to position myself close to scientific points of view. And regarding Climate Change, scientists majority point of view is that it is happening and happening due to our greenhouse gas emissions. See for example general science telling webs like Neofronteras  , or TV programs like Redes 2.0.

Climate Hawks say there is consensus[LLL], or that science is settled [LLL]. Skeptics say there is not consensus [LLL], and show scientific skeptics, or even collect climate change skeptic papers [LLL]. As this time I am explaining more the feelings than evidence, for me it is clear that science divulgers, blogs and field researchers have a clear opinion: yes they believe in anthropogenic climate change. And this is important for me because I have confidence in science, not blind or absolute confidence, but confidence.I even understand when some researchers get angry about skepticism, it is like considering all their work useless. I sometimes have felt something close to this when after a research with data it is refuted by “feelings” or sensations” or just a decision. But may be it is important to note that CC public debate is not so much about science (only a few people would understand), it is about believing in something that should make us change a lot of things in our living standards or economy, and this is not easy to accept.

Just in case, I want to say that apart from my feelings the data I read also confirm a vast majority of climatologists believe in anthropogenic climate change for example the peer reviewed study mentioned in the next figure from Skeptical Science.

97% of climate experts think we are changing global temperature, from Skeptical Science

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Climate Haws vs. Deniers: Why I believe in Climate Change (I)

Clñimate Hawk logo

I read different blogs about climate change (see links under construction). Some agree with climate change  (they are called alarmist by the deniers and climate hawks to themself) and some deny it (they are called deniers by the Hawks and skeptic to themselves).

OK. I consider myself a climate hawk, a beliver, or alarmist, in deniers language. Sometimes deniers are quite convincing but I am more and more convinced of the urgency of climate change. And the more I read the more I believe the urgency of this issue. Why? I will explain in the following posts my reasons, trying to be sincere and explaining the reasons as well as the feellings. more or less these ones:

  • Becasuse of my feelings (and personal history).
  • Because of the evidence I see in the science I understand.
  • Because of my logic.
  • Because of some social logic.
  • Because of the contradictions of deniers .
  • Because of some examples.

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Some Words about Fukushima

Fukushima

Imagen from the reactors (From http://www.fayerwayer.com cc)

I wrote this title when Fukushima was a mayor headline, and after that I left blog writing for some months. However, Fukushima still holds some interest in my blog apart from the overwhelming tragedy for zone inhabitants, workers and most Japanese in general.

I wrote in a previous post that nuclear was dangerous but at the same time give us important KW*h not easy to substitute in this moment. I still hold this opinion in spite of the disaster. We have checked that nuclear security fails in some cases (it was extraordinary I admit it) and when it fails the consequences are disastrous but closing all of them together is a price we can’t afford in this moment. I prefer to maintain their installed power while we close the oldest and less secure, and even accept to install a new one in some cases to maintain power.

Nevertheless all this should be conditioned to rigorous security checks. Just thinking that there is a very old nuclear power station at 60 Km from my home makes me feel quite edgy and knowing the desing is not different from Fukushima even more. But the main idea I wanted to work was about the cost of Fukushima. Without knowing the details I think it is clear it will be very expensive, however making some simple figures it becomes much worse.

Following Doc’s green blog the total cost may reach $50000 million, so $5*10^10. Considering total energy output per year for nuclear plants is around  2.5 10^12  KW*h (2009 data from WWI), it gives us a rough estimate of 2 cent per KW*h over the whole world production of nuclear energy this year. It is not despisable, and will likely be paid to a great extent by Japanese goverment and so Japanesee in general.

Do you consider it a subsidy for nuclear? I do.

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My small friends the worms: Real CO2 savers

Composter Image

Our home worm composter

Last day my wife brought home some colleagues working in the enviroment deparment of the town hall that wanted to see our composter worms. It was a very nice visit and myabe the first time in the several years we live with those wonderful worms, in which I feel proud of them and not afraid of being discovered.
This story started aroung 7-8 years ago when after reading the web compostadores and some others. I bought there the composter (not difficult for skilful or time owner to build by oneself), I learnt from them some tips, bought the worms and they have become our pet as my son says in school. OK, maybe it is not so pink but I am happy because I do not employ too much time or effort with them, they survive and eat a good part of our domestic litter (the vegeatble part, the biggest one) transforming it into good compost.

I suppose you are asking, very ecological but does it have any relationship with climate change? Maybe it is not the critical factor but other litter treatments generate more GHG as methane or CO2 when they are stored or burned. Whereas composting (worm composting in this case, it could be done without worms but in a different way with more space requirements, and this composter lives at home in a small balcony) just fixes the Carbon in soil fertilizer. Apart from transport related CO2, not needing movement is always a saving in CO2 until we change our tranportation technologies.

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Why can´t be my roof white?

I live in a 9 plant house and we are facing several maintenence/repairing operation last years due to the age of the building. With my limited knowledge I participate in a small comission to check our next project, which involves changing our wasted roof.  As we were talking with the architach about the project Y asked why we could not use a white material (or at least paint it) instaed of the greyish one we will finally use. He simply did not take the question into consideration.

Maybe he thought it was about aestetics but it was about albedo.  This strange word plays a role in our climate and can be explained with few words (although maybe not bery precisely): It is the amount of light and so, energy, from our sun that our land reflects. For that reason a quick trick to improve our situation could be to increase this and reflect more solar radiation. I know it sounds quite artificial, but we are not in a situation with too many choices and anyway we are reducing our albedo by melting several glaciers and polar snow. And its easy and in many cases costless at least in some buildings, roofs, etc… It is not the definitive solution for climate change but it could help.

Composition if 3 images from Google Maps. Left: My home city with red roofs, not very reflective. Right: An industrial area not far from the left image, the albedo is much higher. Bottom: Image from Iceland snow, real great albedo.

However, it is not commented anywhere and no goverment (local or higuer) has it included in building rules or politics. So, standard arquitetchs and building material producers will continue thinking it is about colour preference.

I would not be difficult to encourage people to love white for their houses roofs and we could counteract some tons of CO2 without terrible effort. Or at least explain its possibilities for all of us to make choices.

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I am Back

It is more than one year since I started this small trial. And I wanted to celebrate this anyversary around May. However my post frequency reached a worryful minimum this spring and I stopped to write. And the more you stop the more difficult it becomes to return.
But I still have ideas I want to write, to share to some extente or maybe I just feel that this blog can help me organize some thoughts about this subject.
Because even I am not working onit, even if I do not belong to any organization close to this subject, or I am not someone to offer updated scitentific, social or politic opinion about it. I am still very worried and I read something and think about Climate Change. I still think it is a mayor challenge and should be a great priority in those economically difficult times. And finally, I feel some internal need to write again.
My intention is to write weekly. I know it is a poor frequency for a blog, but I expect it is realistic for me. Actually, this blog does not intend to be a standard blog, for the moment is more a place to write and/or organize my thoughts.

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110 kph for saving energy, money or both?

Last week spanish government is facing severe criticism for proposing a maximum speed reduction from 120 to 110 kph in speedways. The mentioned reason is to save money due to petroleum price increase due to Libian uprising. I am not going to the political issue or discussion and different aspects of the proposal or how it has been explained or decided. This kind of measure is not new (speed limit), and the opposing opinions either.

Souce: Wikipedia. Author KaterBegemot. Speed limits in Europe

What really worries me and at the same time shows some opportunities are two questions:

  1. When energy and/or petroleum become very expensive, someone is forced to save, people, the government, companies,…  If we could reflect some cost of Climate change in nowadays main energy sources cost debates would be completely different.
  2. It is not easy to reduce our power to go fast, to consume what we want, to waste resources. It is unpopular because we do not link this to a greater future improvement. We mainly see our immediate loss. This is applicable to electricity costs, flights costs, and many other things.

But the question could be understood from a different point of view. Maybe we have lived last century from energy resources accumulated during millions of years and our credit is finishing because this expenditure is too much for our climate. So we could recognize it and start changing by ourselves with conscious sacrifice, or let the atmosphere act in our society, economy and so on and be forced to change late, worse prepared and fighting each other.

Because if we want to reduce speed and gas consumption a law nor any government is not really needed.

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My journey to Germany

Last week I went to Düsseldorf and Cologne for a business trip. 3 days 4 flights, I know, several CO2 tons thrown to the atmosphere. This time I am not going to write about this, just some light and personal comments as I did in my recent trip to Rome .

As usually not totally white or black, first of all,  a news from Reuters about cuts in solar energy subsidies in Germany. It may seem discouraging as Germany is the biggest solar industry market (with less sun than many), but this news deserves a more detailed study beyond the scope of this post.

One striking photo is the next one, it was cold, not far from 0ºC, and this shop was totally open. Very attractive but very energy consuming and expensive in many senses. It would be very interesting to know our CO2 saving potential just changing this kind of evident things.

 

Completely open shop in Cologne centre's commertial area at ~0ºC

The second one is just opposite, I was really pleased to see how precise was street lights switchon time and how most of them were not too bright and directed to the floor to avoid inefficient loss in light pollution.

Street lamps

Street lamps switched on just when sunlight went out.

Finally one side effect of smoking ban and love for open spaces: the gas lamps in the terraces. It is growing in my home city in Bilbao too, but I saw it in central Europe before. In my personal opinion this is very similar to the open shop case, many CO2 tons thrown to the atmosphere that could easily be avoided.

 

Open terrace with gas burner at 0-5 ºC

Another burner at 0-5 ºC, this is more spectacular

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of course, I do not intend to criticize a country that is doing much more than most. This photos could be taken in any western country. But I usually do not take the camera when I walk in Bilbao.

 

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Light Pollution and Climate Change

It can be considered a secondary problem and certainly it is not comparable to many possible consequences of climate change as: floods, draughts, sea raising, … But, in my opinion, it is at the same time a nice and interesting symbol.

It is quite striking to realize that most prominent astronomers from XVI to XVIII centuries worked from cities. Visiting Greenwich Royal Observatory just in the outskirts of London was a real pleasure and a surprise for me.  Whereas nowadays almost everyone living in a city knows how difficult is to see any star in the night sky. In my case, the very frequently cloudy sky is another important factor too. But even for cloudless cities light pollution is a nightmare for many astronomers, and some of them are taking action against it (there are many links , those three are just a small sample: IDA, wonderful maps, Cel Fosc).  Congratulations for all of them.

Italian peninsula light pollution development, Source: http://www.lightpollution.it/

But for the moment as clearly shown in the picture we have lost hte opportunity to see the universe’s beauty. And we, urban cityzens are more than half of human population. This loss can be critizised from many point of views:

  • A phylosophycal one:the loss of perspective of the universe.
  • A scientific one: we can’t see the stars, and many amateurs find it more difficult to make contributions for general knowledge.
  • A stetical one: we are loosing a wonderful spectacle.
  • An historical one: we are getting disconnected with the night sights contemplated by our grandparents.
  • And a climate change one: We are wasting much of the light emmited by our lamps. So, we are throwing millions of tons of CO2 just to disturb astronomers, and sky lovers in general. This is an evident inefficiency and quite an interesting potential gain, we could save CO2 tons and improve this subjetive concept named quality of life.

 

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