What do I think, What can I do?

Xi Jinping leader, Source: Wikipedia

Xi Jinping leader, Source: Wikipedia

Maybe it’s to late to talk about Obama’s victory, but I don’t intend to be up to the fast pace of the news. Of course I got quite satisfied with USA elections results, due to the strong “drill baby drill” speech coming from Romey and more after the acceptance speech:

“We want our children to live in an America that isn’t burdened by debt, that isn’t weakened by inequality, that isn’t threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet,”

This important election was extensively covered by many climate blogs as Climate Progress, or Quark Soup. Even Pieckle Sr, usually a blog without political content, mentioned USA elections comparing them to Chinese process.  And there is where I wanted to arrive, if USA elections were very important for the climate change politics due to many factors,Chinese leadership is not less and has not been covered at the same extent.

Both states are the biggest CO2 sources in the world, more than 40% of the emissions between them. And ,although far from the USA in per capita emissions China’s development has made them the leaders in this classification and it is still growing fast. It will not be possible to do something meaningful in climate change without the implication of China, so Xi Jinping¡s ideas about climate change are even more important than Obama¡s and I do not know them. Maybe, next days in COP18 we will start to see. At least I hope so.

 

In NYT climate news feed they sent some old news last month I think that by error, but it has been interesting to check the change of perspective in the republican party in just ten years: He did not penalize CO2 emissions but it was in his electoral program. He even had a climate agenda and wanted to delay actions ten years for more research. Nowadays it would be considered a progressive in the republican party.
It is amazing to see how things can change in just a decade, and I cannot say it for sure but I do not think he has been the only one, the problem is that we do not have so many time to play political sports with climate change, the CO2 is rising, the temperature is rising, and the time to get a reasonable equilibrium is running out.

ice cubes

ice cubes

Recently I read some news about IceCube neutrino observatory in the south pole. It is an amazing installation looking for the secrets of those elusive particles and by extension to the secrets of distant galaxies, a kind of telescope really. It is not the only installation looking for neutrinos, but this is very special as it is built in the great ice desert of Antarctica. In fact, is uses the 3 Km of ice depth in this continent to find neutrinos.

I was amazed by the technology and imagination involved in this great telescope. Will it last when the climate changes?

I suppose so, I hope so, but did the scientific in charge consider this aspect? Too many times is not considered for medium to  long-term forecasts even in groups that do not deny it in any way

 

At home, we take part in a local group of vegetable and egg buy/sell. The idea is good and simple. A local producer grows vegetables (in this case ecological ones but it is not compulsory for this idea), it packs some bags every week with some variety of them depending on the season and leaves them on monday in one place. During that day the ten customers take the bags and discover the surprise of that week in form of fresh, healthy and local food. The payments are done for three months periods and the producer gets a fixed customer group that visit  him/her every year.

There are many advantages as promoting local jobs in primary sector, avoiding complex intermediate markets, the confidence between customer and producer,… and the reduction of Kms for the vegetables and the associated CO2, I always consider funny that the lettuce I am eating has traveled more than me in the last year.

This possibility is possible, it is reasonable and it is growing!

Photograph from Senda Viva, a flag showing environmental commintment

Photograph from Senda Viva, a flag showing environmental commitment

Last weekend, we enjoyed a very nice day at Senda Viva . A place I would define as a combination of Zoo, amusement park and small circus. It is focused on children and does its job well.

Maybe for the focus or just for the paths of my mind, I remembered my recent experience in Loro Parque. But this time I did not find the smallest mention to climate change, it is true that any other messages were scarce too so in some sense it could be too much to ask them for this kind of favored approach. However I found three small reasons to do so:

1.- The first is for survival. Senda Viva has good installations and attractions but suffers from extreme weather in summer and winter. With changed climate it can be even worse, and this can negatively affect the future of the project.

2.- When children are involved the educational point of view is always present in some sense. So it is better to remain them the challenges of their future world.

3.- The last is just a detail. There is a very nice view of the whole region in the top of a small mountain and some windmills are named along with some thermal power stations, why not other windmills of solar power stations that are an unavoidable part of Navarre’s landscape?

 

 

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Photograph from the conference door

This conference has been held in Bilbao these days with good coverage in the news. I was positively surprised by the media impact of this conference as hydro power was a very important power source in the past here but is not in the main discussions nowadays.

In fact, the power of the water coming from the rivers has been one of the first industrial era power sources and it is still the most important renewable energy and the most widespread, maybe its great advantage is that it is not considered as renewable sometimes or that it has not grown in the last years. Or maybe hat it is very cheap because installation investments were done many years ago. Anyway, one way or another I have always thought that it produces a considerable percentage or world energy, however , checking actual figures I was negatively surprised to discover that its 3000 TWh of yearly production only account for the 2% of world energy demand.

As I did not assist the conference I do not know what kind of subjects were discussed there. Perhaps they covered many of the questions a have about water as energy source as:

Why did they say that Europe is not so interesting for this market compared to for example South America?
What is the potential of traditional hydropower to overcome thi
Why is mini and micro hydro power so forgotten as energy source?
Are the methane production of big hydro power well determined?
How advanced is the tidal wave power?
Did they visit the small but interesting tidal power station in Motriku? (60 Km from Bilbao)
Or tidal energy was out of the scope of this conference and traditional hydro power industry?

 

There are many levels that matter in climate change, personal level, big international politics, national politics in the most influential countries,… but there are many other that may exert some influence, cities, towns regional governments, states in the USA…

Today there have been elections for the Basque parliament. The main idea related with climate change would be that from the elected 75 people 64 belong to parties that considered climate change real and important in their programs for those elections, it is a huge percentage. Basque government has a limited field of action in the most critical things related to climate change but this even reinforces the value of those intentions.

Will they become significant steps towards a carbon free future? I do not know but they show that in Europe climate change is not discussed, what to do or how much to do to avoid it yes, even more inside the economical and social crisis.

From Hiriko web, http://www.hiriko.com

Some time ago I mentioned this promising project called Hiriko a small electric city car following the concept by MIT . It seems a great idea but not always great ideas become real things, because the way to the great public is hard.

Nevertheless I read two positive news about this project in the last months, this piece of news in the very prestigious thinkprogress web , and this one mentioning the interest of the German railways on it.

None of them means real life success but they are small steps towards it. And this is hopeful for me because transportation is one of the key aspects of  Climate Change and needs maybe more innovation than others due to the lack of maturity of the alternative technologies.

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I was gladly surprised to read this news in a local newspaper. It is also in the Guardian for example, but not in every important media. It mentions a report by DARA about climate vulnerabilities for all countries and continents in the world. After a quick read I am convinced it deserves more time and analysis from my part. However, the headlines in the newspapers is enough for a first opinion. It mentions the 1.6 drop in GDP that is caused currently by climate change. It would be enough to counteract the crisis in many countries where many fossil fuel supporters are blaming renewables energy costs for their costly electricity. And the most important issue, this economic effect is happening now, not in the unpredictable future of next generation, so what can we expect for our children? Are the renewables so expensive or climate change makes the fossil fuel far more costly? Many climate change hawks emphasize the economic balance, is not a bad strategy as counteracts the main problem of the main solution: the renewable energy.

My holidays are getting very far, evolving into not very clear memories. Yet I wanted to write a summary post with my thoughts and I have been delaying it, but today, in one way or another I have posted it.

When I travel, I frequently look for images or facts related with climate change, renewable energies,…  This year I have even post some of them as:

My mental short summary now is that Canary islands have a lot to lose from climate change because having a wonderful climate any change will likely be negative and climate is central for the two main economic sectors there: agriculture and tourism. But, this scaring risks can also become opportunities as the experience of making El Hierro a renewable island shows, and I firmy believe in the potential of Canary islands. In fact, the same stubbornness of La Palma inhabitants not to allow any new industry they consider contaminant could lead them to a more renewable energy. They have two great advantages,  they do not have to feed a large electricity hungry industry and they do not suffer from cold or heat at their homes (for the moment).

By the way, why not try to reasearch geothermal generation possibilities in islands with active volcanos,  if they are useful to amuse the tourists by cooking tasteful meals (in Lanzarote) they could also be useful for something more productive.