Green eggs and pork

A number of newspapers are following the distribution of Congressional money towards green technological projects. The New York Times reported a $4 million grant to Jupiter Oxygen, a small company which is researching clean coal technology. The New York Times also notes that this company gave a total of $41,000 to two Representatives.

The technology that Jupiter Oxygen uses is called "Oxy-Fuel" and its main novelty is the fact that it excludes ambient air from the combustion process. This means that nitrous oxide (NOx) is largely removed from the air and that carbon dioxide waste is easier to capture. The company doesn't say too much on their website though - and it looks like they only have one real client, an "aluminum company" which isn't named specifically. Strange. Additionally, their descriptions of the actual Oxy-Fuel process seem vague to me, but that may be due to my limited understanding. you guys should check out their website at:


http://www.jupiteroxygen.com/

Beached

Currently, my lil sis and my boyfriend are stranded on an abandoned island near the maine coast, awaiting rescue. I was the designated rescuer - and managed to flag down a sympathetic family who bore me away to safety. Now I am (mostly) dry and Jeff Pool, the miracle man of South Bristol, is preparing to go rescue the other two. My mom just noticed that, quote, "there is a serious storm right over where they are. No doubt about it, its there. I imagine that they are not going to be happy when they get back." My mom's imaginative powers seldom go far astray.

In honor of this event - which may seem much more fun when we are all cuddled up in front of a fire - I am going to do a little blog about the potential effects of sea level rise on the Maine coast. I found an article published by the Natural Resources Council of Maine on the potential damage that sea level rise could cause. Here are some of the top coastal towns which are expected to be effected:

Arrowsic
Boothbay Harbor
Cranberry Isles
Jonesport
Kennebunkport
Old Orchard Beach
Portland
Scarborough
South Portland
Vinalhaven
Bath

From this assessment, it looks as though even a 1 meter rise will cause damage in several towns, including Portland. Which may be why it looks like Maine is jumping on the global warming bandwagon, and encouraging wind power projects. I am in favor of wind, as it is a clean, renewable and cost-competitive source of energy. Although there is not too much wind going on right now, a lot of projects are currently awaiting approval. Check out the map below for all the suggested Maine wind farms. This map is from http://www.nrcm.org/wind_projects_in_maine.asp - part of the National Resources Council of Maine global warming website.

Who Is Senator Biden?

One of our close, family friends is working as a secretary for Senator Biden, the senator from Delaware who is running for the democratic nomination. Senator Biden has made a career of small-time campaigning, which explains why I heard an in depth interview with him on NPR. The interview played to his strength - foreign policy - and I ended up being pretty impressed with what he had to say. It made me wonder, just who is this 3rd nominee, who doesn't have the money or pizazz of a Clinton or an Obama? He definitely started the campaign off badly by referring to Obama as articulate, bright and "clean" - all words that are often highly offensive to the black community, for obvious reasons. One of my friends recently pointed out to me that when a white person wants to compliment a black person, they frequently use the word "articulate" - which has become racially coded as a result. So Biden definitely deserved the heat he got for that comment - I mean, his use of "clean" is just ridiculous. But, to be honest, I think he was making the point that in today's racial politics, a man who is African American, but also a bit racially ambiguous, good looking, young and charismatic - Obama, has an immediate appeal to the public which is unrelated to his politics.

Anyways, you can look up more about Biden for yourselves. What I want to focus on is trying to tease out what his energy plans are, and whether he has as good a handle on those as he does foreign policy.

Biden seems to focus on the national security dimension of energy - largely oil dependency issues.

"There is no question our oil dependence is threatening our national security. It helps fuel the fundamentalism we're fighting. Our oil dependence limits our options and our influence around the world, because oil rich countries pursuing policies we oppose can stand up to us, while oil dependent allies may be afraid to stand with us. If we don't change our policy, oil will further empower the countries that produce it, restrict our options, and undermine our economic and physical security. Where we can have the most impact is stopping our demand for oil from increasing as our economy grows. We know where to start: expand alternative fuels and improve vehicle efficiency. We can do this. We can absolutely do this." – Senator Joe Biden

He also seems to be particularly interested in transportation issues - he has proposed making fuel economy standards more stringent by a rate of about 4% per year, and requiring that all cars be flex-fuel cars (able to use E85) by 2017. He also has introduced legislation that would make it mandatory for large gas and oil companies to stock alternative fuel (E85) at their gas stations. He also is interested in directly increasing ethanol production. He also says that he is in favor of creating an energy portfolio where 20% of US electricity would come from renewable sources. He has no deadline for this, which makes it a bit suspect though.

What about climate change?

Senator Biden has an entire section, separate from energy, on his site which recommends that the US begin immediate action to face climate change. He wants to use US leverage to convince China to take steps. He also wants to reduce Greenhouse gases to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050, using a cap and trade system. His other two main ideas are energy efficiency, 20% electricity from renewables and increased vehicle fuel efficiency standards.

How does he compare to the other candidates?

Clinton is interesting -she apparently has it out for oil companies, and is determined to use their "windfall" profits to fund the research and development of alternative energy. She is really quite tough in one video I watched on her website - arguing that either the oil companies will voluntarily seek to fund alternative energy, or that they must donate a portion of their profits to her 'Strategic Energy Fund' to fund alternative energy. And let me be clear, when Clinton talks about alternative energy, she has three ideas in mind: clean coal, ethanol and hybrid vehicles. Not exactly running the full gamut of ideas. Then again, all the candidates seem to focus on these technologies over the riskier (but far cleaner) ones of wind and solar. Does this seem a bit backward to anyone? Yes, oil companies have been highly successful. But is it really okay to punish them for their financial success by forcing them to donate large sums of money to put other corporations into business - without any benefit to themselves? I mean, come on.

Obama seems to have ideas virtually identical to those of Biden - although the language on his website is incredibly fluffy. But maybe I am just getting old and cynical.

Actually - notice that all three candidates are huge on ethanol and clean coal, but there are virtually no real discussions about climate change economics - ie, whether to start a market for carbon tons, like the Kyoto protocol, and if so - how to auction off those permits (or give them for free, as the EU unfortunately did) - as I have said before, the real debate about climate change is just not happening.

Drinking Vitamins through a straw

I try to ignore the AOL news page that pops up at me when I log on and advertises such "top new stories" as "Oops, Britney Carrying Fake Knock-off Bag" and "When Cosmetic Surgery Goes Bad." However, sometimes the popup box that you can't ever click away shows a headline that I just can't resist. Like "Man Sneaks Monkey onto Plane", or, in this case, "Should You Sip Your Vitamins Through a Straw?" Even before reading this article, I was quite sure that no, you should not sip your vitamins in through a straw. The whole vitamin water craze is very bizarre to me - what is so appealing about drinking expensive, high-fructose corn syrup-enriched, water? Sure there are a couple of vitamins tossed in, but nothing truly vital to your health, or nothing that would not be better gained from a fresh piece of fruit or a fresh vegetable. I remember reading a article written by the man who wrote The Omnivore's Dilemma about how what makes fruit and vegetables good for us cannot be isolated down to one component. No, despite what people want you to believe, what is good about vegetables is not their vitamins, minerals, fiber, flavenoids, or whatever. What is good for you about a vegetable is the entire, vegetable experience - minerals, vitamins, fresh food, fiber, taste - all of it in an irreducible package.

Anyways, here is an interesting diagram from the article. You can find the entire article at:
http://money.aol.com/wsj/general/canvas3/_a/should-you-sip-your-vitamins-through-a/20070724121509990001

Freakonomics and Hurricanes

Today I discovered the Freakonomics blog which links off of nytimes.com. For those of you who haven't read "Freakonomics" by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner - get on it! The book is incredibly interesting, one of the few non-fiction that I have been able to devour in a few sittings. The basic premise is that a smart, non-biased economist goes around thinking about social,everyday problems from an economics standpoint. He tackles Roe v. Wade and national crime rates, drug gangs, sumo wrestling and more. In my opinion, he is not quite so unbiased - after all, he criticizes (indirectly) both the pro-life stance and the No Child Left Behind Act - but then, we all have biases.



Anyways, I read one of their blog entries written about the possible connection between hurricanes and climate change. The entry just encapsulated a statement that the American Meteorological Association came out with in 2006, which is what follows:


Consensus statements by the workshop participants

1. Though there is evidence both for and against the existence of a detectable anthropogenic signal in the tropical cyclone climate record to date, no firm conclusion can be made on this point.

2. No individual tropical cyclone can be directly attributed to climate change.

3. The recent increase in societal impact from tropical cyclones has been largely caused by rising concentrations of population and infrastructure in coastal regions.

4. Tropical cyclone wind-speed monitoring has changed dramatically over the last few decades leading to difficulties in determining accurate trends.

5. There is an observed multi-decadal variability of tropical cyclones in some regions whose causes, whether natural, anthropogenic or a combination, are currently being debated. This variability makes detecting any long-term trends in tropical cyclone activity difficult.

6. It is likely that some increase in tropical cyclone peak wind-speed and rainfall will occur if the climate continues to warm. Model studies and theory project a 3-5% increase in wind-speed per degree Celsius increase of tropical sea surface temperatures.

7. There is an inconsistency between the small changes in wind-speed projected by theory and modeling versus large changes reported by some observational studies.

8. Although recent climate model simulations project a decrease or no change in global tropical cyclone numbers in a warmer climate there is low confidence in this projection. In addition, it is unknown how tropical cyclone tracks or areas of impact will change in the future.

9. Large regional variations exist in methods used to monitor tropical cyclones. Also, most regions have no measurements by instrumented aircraft. These significant limitations will continue to make detection of trends difficult.

10. If the projected rise in sea level due to global warming occurs, then the vulnerability to tropical cyclone storm surge flooding would increase.

This was interesting as it was - you tend to hear more on the news about how hurricanes are rapidly increasing - due to scary global warming, when in fact we have no certainty yet about the issue. There has been one study published by Greg Holland and Peter Webster which documents an increase in hurricanes correlated to global warming - but the study has little other support from the scientific community. The other interesting part is that the blog includes many posts from readers who seem extremely cynical about global warming - cynical and pretty well educated. One of them even cited Lomberg - The Cynical Environmentalist.

The Ecology of Fear

I am about to go to bed after a delightful day spent boating and eating pie up here in Maine. I had my first "bumbleberry" pie - which turned out to be a mixture of different kinds of berries. Disappointing, I was hoping to discover a new fruit, called the bumbleberry. Anyways, here are a few good news items to check out. The first is about the burgeoning power of blogging - a writer for Forbes magazine created a blog written in the imagined voice of Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple. Reporters have just figured out who was behind it, and only after "Fake Steve" became enormously popular. The article I read was in the New York Times, but the story has been followed by many different publications.

Another one to check out is called, "Yellowstone's wolves save its aspens" from The New York Times. It describes how since wolves have been reintroduced to Yellowstone, the Aspen populations have begun to recover. This is partially due to the fact that the wolves eat elk, which graze on baby Aspen trees. However, it is more directly due to the fact that many elk are now afraid to graze in open areas where baby trees are growing. Therefore, it is the "ecology of fear" which allows for the restoration of the aspens. Pretty neat.

http://www.treesforlife.org.uk/images/aspen.jpg

Volcanoes - molten hot, or chilling?

One of my friends from home posted a question about the role of volcanoes in climate change. It took me a while to gather my thoughts and to research this question. I figured it was important to consider because I have heard this question bandied about in the news, and in conversation about climate change. First, Let me put B's comment below:

"Emily, I personally think you missed one important thing the debate should be about. Yes, no doubt there is global warming. However, are we humans really that big of an influence or is this just a normal, cyclical change in our environment? Sure, we burn carbon based fuels but does anyone really believe that the CO2 output of what we are doing comes anywhere close to what the hundreds of volcanoes around the world spew out every day? There are numerous sources of research to indicate that about every 10000 years or so the earth's climate has changed drastically - I do believe we may be in that cycle of reversal right now. I also believe that it is awfully presumptuous to conclude, based on a little over a hundred years of climate data, that this is an issue that we know ANYTHING about. I'm all for cleaning up the environment and lower emissions but let's keep it real."

The question is interesting because, in my mind, it gets at some of the underlying morality questions of climate change. Is the earth a system impervious to human-induced change, or is it highly sensitive to our every motion? The models that the IPCC relies on to make predictions use at least 5 levels of "climate sensitivity" - because the truth is that we don't really know how sensitive the climate actually is. Some of us are inclined to believe that the climate has reacted immediately to the release of greenhouse gases, others believe that the earth can withstand many more violent fluctuations. I think the answer is probably somewhere in the middle. In my opinion, an extreme assumption either way is more of a moral judgement regarding the relationship between earth and mankind than a scientific one.

In terms of volcanoes and climate change - I did a little research because I didn't know anything about about the topic. What I found is somewhat surprising. I had assumed that volcanoes added carbon and heat to the atmosphere. However, the opposite is true - volcanoes add mostly aerosols and large particulate matter to the atmosphere. The large particulates fall out pretty soon, and have few long term effects on climate. However, the aerosols remain in the atmosphere for years and have a cooling forcing effect on climate. For example, scientists carefully followed the recent explosion of Mount Pinatubo and found that it was correlated to a global cooling period.

Of course, this does not get at the heart of the question, which is whether we truly know anything about our climate - enough to even know whether our activities are causing climate change. My opinion is that we do know that human activities are causing climate change - we have climate data dating back thousands of years (ice cores, dust loggers, tree rings). However, I think that beyond that our suppositions are riddled with uncertainty. The hard part is making decisions in a situation where the uncertainty is so so huge (environmentalists downplay the large gaps in our knowledge) and where the risks may also be big. (Of course, I feel that we should spend more time thinking about what the actual risks are).

Champagne with my professor

Yesterday, Dahlia and I tacked up our poster on a large poster board and milled around awkwardly for a question and answer session. It was the closing ceremony of the Howard Hughes program - and they served us various small, expensive snacks. Like deviled eggs (merely mediocre), pieces of sausage on toothpicks (didn't touch them), and presliced fruit (delicious). Putting our poster together took a lot more time than I expected - first of all, science writing is difficult. The abstract combined about 10 pages of information into one paragraph - plus the wording had to be exactly right - clear and concise. Afterwards, our PI took us out to a hill behind the science center and we had a bottle of champagne, strawberries, and lady fingers. YUM! We then engaged in some very women-oriented discussion - I would never have imagined that I could discuss my menstrual cycle with a professor, but new things are possible after a few, bubbly glasses and some whipped cream. I am kind of sad that this part of the summer is over - for one thing, it is probably one of the last "summer jobs" that I will have. Next year I will begin a "career" - probably some sort of multi-month undertaking. Sweet Mother of God. Additionally, looking back, it has been a sweet, New England summer. Fruit picking, jam making, hiking, swimming in swimming holes (that is what they call ponds up here). To aid others in this undertaking, I will finish by enclosing my grandmother's recipe for homemade raspberry jam. Shhhh, don't tell.


8 cups raspberries, cleaned and dried
5 cups sugar

Mash up the raspberries. Bring them to a boil over the stove, then reduce the heat so they are simmering. Simmer for about 30 minutes. Then add 1 cup of sugar, bring the mixture to a boil, then add 2 cups and bring to a boil. Repeat until the raspberries are sweet enough - don't worry about consistency. Finally, boil until they reach the right consistency - maybe 15 more minutes.

You have to boil jam jars before you put the jam in - plus, put the jam in while the jars are still hot.